PoArtry is an ongoing annual collaboration project that invites poets and artists to work with each other to create new work. It is the brainchild of Rick Sanders, an artist and poet from the Black Country, who has successfully bought creatives together over the past 6 years to demonstrate exactly what happens when you leave them alone to their own devices! 

  In March 2022, almost two years after Covid rampaged around the world and countries and individuals were forced into lockdown and isolation, Rick wanted to explore the theme of hope, wondering on an almost daily basis what people were clinging onto to make sense of the new world in which we all found ourselves.   

He ran a project called ‘Hope Central’, which was an invitation for anyone to leave a message of hope on his home answer machine. Each evening he downloaded the messages and sent them to the sound artist Bill Laybourne, who expertly wove them into a soundscape. This soundscape was then performed to a live audience and posted online for a month on a continuous loop, so that people could find it, drop into the audio at the point it was playing and reflect on the messages that had been left. 

  After Hope Central had run its course, Rick found himself thinking more and more about the aspects of life that people were turning to at this time, a time that had subsequently seen the invasion of Ukraine and the deepening impact of austerity and the cost of living crisis. He became fascinated by people’s strength of character, their resolve under trying and often unpredictable circumstances, but most of all, he was deeply moved by the resilience and thoughtful reflection in each one of the messages that had been left. It became apparent that Hope Central needed to live on, to continue its cycle of inspiration.

Rick invited 20 artists to create artworks based on their perception of the Hope Central soundscape and the PoArtry exhibition for 2022 is the culmination of their responses. 

  Rick says:    ‘This exhibition invites you to get lost in the audio and at the same time experience the visual response to the soundscape you are listening to. It asks you to consider your own relationship with hope and to take the time to reflect on how you stand upright in the maelstrom of seemingly endless crisis and the degradation of the social fabric that holds humanity together. I hope you get something from it.’ 

  The exhibition runs from 16th - 30th October at General Office Gallery, 12 Hagley Road, Stourbridge DY8 1PS with a private view on the evening of 15th October from 7pm.

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