Technical Tales

Created for Art Gene's If These Walls Could Talk Exhibition, on from 28th May to 11th June 2024.

Barrow's beautiful Nan Tait Centre on Abbey Road is home to ArtGene who wanted to tell the tale of this landmark building, originally built as a Technical School.

School visit - photo courtesy of Art Gene / South Walney Junior & Infant Schools

They collaborated with Cumbria Archives (Barrow) to put on an event at Barrow Library about the project, which attracted former students happy to share their memories of their time both learning and teaching at the Technical School, or college as it became. Edited highlights of interviews with the students were presented on a fabric reproduction of the building plans, with stories linked to its locations from the classrooms to the canteen.

That hadn't been the original intention but the documents were so appealing with their perfectly-inked Art Nouveau flourishes from the celebrated Manchester architects Woodhouse & Willoughby, they had to be incorporated. It was also a way for them to reach a wider audience as the precious originals were not permitted out for public display.

Visitors can now follow in the students' footsteps, tapping shoes to trigger audio playback of their stories, learning about the building and the role it played in so many people's lives.

Here's a quick video explanation from Jennie:

The full first floor plan.

The full ground floor plan.

We learned how to laser cut and engrave leather for this project. It worked wonderfully, but stank awfully! Like burnt hair on a turd!

Close up of the key and two of the touch sensitive footprints.

Jennie testing during installation

Full gallery space - photo courtesy of Art Gene / South Walney Junior & Infant Schools

Technical Tales in situ.

Our Technical Tales installation outlived the exhibition and the plan is to keep it in the lobby so anyone marvelling over the Nan Tait's architecture can have an audio tour via the interactive plans with those who came before. The student's full interviews are now held at Cumbria Archives (Barrow) as a social history resource.

Behind the Scenes

We used a Bare Conductive Control Board as the brains of it all.

Chris had to get out the zoomy bins for the soldering on this one!

The full wiring set up like an electric fungus.