In 1620, a group of ordinary people from Bassetlaw in Nottinghamshire made an extraordinary journey. LAND-ING aims to celebrate and commemorate their part of the famous Mayflower voyage from Plymouth to Massachusetts.
One of the starting points of LAND-ING is to explore our local connections to events which seem distant and historical. Two of the original separatists who joined the pilgrims were a Scrooby postmaster, William Brewster, and a parson from Babworth, Richard Clifton, and half of the people who boarded the Mayflower lived and worked in Bassetlaw. Their journey to start a new life where they could escape religious persecution is still relevant today, and LAND-ING is rooted in ideas about freedom, tolerance, and migration.
Throughout 2019, Kate Stoddart and Jo Wheeler worked with a group of young people from the Inspire Learning Course. In a journey to explore art, history, and new experiences together, the group visited Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Tate Modern, and the FORMAT International Photography Festival, and took a boat ride following part of the original route of the pilgrims on their first journey from the UK to Holland. With a newfound knowledge and confidence, those young people then took part in a collaborative shortlisting process. They chose artist Hetain Patel’s proposal for a short film, LAND-ING, as the project which they wanted to see made with their community.
2020 was a period of reflection and change. Like many other Mayflower 400 projects, we have postponed key activities until it’s safe to proceed, and we’re now planning to start production on LAND-ING in 2022. In light of the Black Lives Matter movement, we’re also taking time to re-examine whose stories we’re telling, and to engage critically with the damaging and lasting impact of colonialism.
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