Be part of Newlyn community history!

The working port of Newlyn

Next week you can help record a piece of Newlyn history - to take part, head for Newlyn Gallery next Tuesday or Thursday morning.

The Anthology of Rural Life is a collaborative photographic project whose intention is to produce a record of life in rural communities across Europe. So far work has been produced in Cornwall, south west Finland and the Italian Alps with new work being planned for eastern Poland in July 2017.

100 years ago, fishermen and their wives worked closely with Stanhope Forbes to record a way of life on canvas.

We have been invited to work in the Newlyn Gallery as part of their Transitions programme. The dates for this are the 20th – 24th February 2017.

As part of our residency with the Transitions programme we would like to invite 3 groups of individuals from the local community into the Newlyn Gallery on Tuesday 21st, Thursday 23rd and Friday 24th of February between 10am and 12 am. There will be an opportunity to view the exhibition of ARL work, to speak to the photographers, discuss the work on show and to get involved with editing a journal of the work which can be taken away and kept by the participants.

Before the Mousehole road - a bit of history captured in paint

We are very aware of the history of the involvement between artists and the Newlyn community which goes back to the Newlyn School of Painting of the late nineteenth century. It seems apt and appropriate to acknowledge that history with this contemporary community project.


The ARL’s involvement with the Newlyn Gallery will allow for the interaction of members of the contemporary fishing community with a project that documents rural life now. The intention will be realised through discussion about the work within the gallery and the physical engagement of working with photographs (editing, sequencing and binding) which will then be taken back into the Newlyn community.

Ideally we would like to have representatives from three distinct, but related groups:

• Retired fishermen and/or wives of retired fishermen
• Those involved in the contemporary fishing industry
• Women from the local Newlyn community (perhaps wives of working fishermen)

Colin Robins, Oliver Udy

The project has involved working in partnership with, amongst others, the Cornish Studies Archive, Arts Council England, SARKA (the Finnish National Museum of Rural Life), Plymouth University, the Institute of Contemporary Photography, Milan and the University of Life Sciences in Warsaw.