Designing a modern moquette - project update
As part of Calderdale’s Art and About trail, we’re delivering an exciting community arts project to celebrate Calderdale’s rich textiles history. Here’s an update on progress with the project so far.
About the project
Harriet Fletcher
Working with our communities, we’re designing a new moquette fabric that will be displayed at Halifax bus station. This will be a key point of interest on the Art and About trail – a route featuring existing landmarks and new art installations that celebrate the unique heritage and culture of Halifax.
The project is being led Everybody Arts Director, Harriet Fletcher, with input from artists and communities across Calderdale.
Find out more about the project.
Engaging our communities
From April to June, we delivered a series of courses and workshops to look at the history of moquette in Calderdale and gather ideas for the new moquette fabric. From a four-week course with textile enthusiasts to a family workshop in our gallery space, 85 people got involved in the project and shared their creativity with us.
We were absolutely blown away by your input and wanted to take this opportunity to say a big thank you to each and every person that took part.
We also wanted to share some of the outputs from the moquette sessions. We just love what you came up with:
What’s next?
Lead artist, Harriet is now taking inspiration from the moquette sessions to create a design for the final moquette. Initially, the deadline for the final design was quite tight - but we’ve been given a bit of extra wiggle room to slow the pace down and make sure we come up with a final design that truly reflects Calderdale and all the amazing people that have contributed to this project.
With that in mind, we’d like to do some extra engagement with our communities and perfect the design over the Summer. We expect the final moquette piece to be installed later in the year.
You’re invited!
We’d really love as many people as possible to continue to help us shape this project and would like to invite you to take a look at our design progress so far.
Over the last month, Harriet has been working to produce a series of fabric samples showing what the final design could look like. You are welcome to drop in on 17 July for a coffee, chat and an opportunity to take a look at the samples and share your feedback. Everyone welcome!
Date: 17 July
Time: 12.30 – 1.30pm
Location: Everybody Gallery (Everybody Arts, Shaw Lane, Halifax, England, HX3 9ET)
Telling the story…
Michael Holdsworth
Alongside delivering the moquette courses and workshops, we’ve also been filming a mini documentary that looks back at Calderdale’s rich textiles history and shows how this has influenced the design of our modern moquette.
So far, we’ve been lucky enough to speak to moquette experts from Calderdale Industrial Museum and Michael Holdsworth, former CEO of John Holdsworth and Co. (one of the leading producers of moquette before their buyout in 2007). We also had a visit to Camira Fabrics in Mirfield who acquired John Holdworth and Co. and got a little insight into how the production of moquette has changed in recent years.
A huge thank you to Keith, Janine and Tim from Calderdale Industrial Museum, Honor from Camira and Michael Holdsworth for supporting the project. The final documentary will be released later in the year. In the meantime, you can take a look at these short teaser videos: