Ingrid Pollard, Turner Prize Nominee, Visits Honiton

Libraries Unlimited are delighted to be part of a wider project in Devon produced by Ella S. Mills of talking on corners focused on the work of Ingrid Pollard - Turner Prize nominee 2022 - with a varied programme of activity, which includes Three Drops of Blood, an exhibition of new work at THG (Thelma Hubert Gallery).

See our Projects page for more details.

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Linda Isaacson, Library Supervisor at Honiton Library, shares her experiences of the programme of events below:

"We were lucky enough to be involved in a full programme of events connected to the Ingrid Pollard exhibition at the Thelma Hulbert Gallery in Honiton.

As well as having a display of books in Honiton Library relating to the work of Ingrid Pollard, we had Monica Shanta here one Saturday morning offering a family-friendly collage workshop. She brought ferns and gardening magazines, maps and paper - a bit of everything in fact. It was really busy and people of all ages got stuck in, from 3 years old upwards. They used the library to find out about the origins of plants, and they could draw, cut and stick away until they had a picture of their own to take home. Mums and dads merrily joined in, and one grandfather said he hadn't stuck things on bits of paper for many years! (Grandma left him to carry on and took her chance to browse the library shelves!)

We were also lucky enough to host a school event in the library too. Double Elephant Printworks worked with pupils from Honiton Primary School to create some beautiful prints. Again, based around Ingrid's exhibition, the workshop was excellent fun. Closed to the public for the day, we were able to take over the whole library. We printed from ferns and plants in the morning and then after lunch made our own printing plates. We were allowed (encouraged!) to let our imaginations run wild, and everyone enjoyed making the plates, rolling the ink and putting them through the press. The "reveals" were great fun and really exciting.

One boy remarked, "Are we really doing art all day? We're not stopping for any maths? Cool!" One girl realised that in her hallway at home were some prints and it suddenly dawned on her that they were probably made in the same way. We had a great day and Simon from Double Elephant was an excellent teacher."

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In addition to Libraries Unlimited, project partners include Devon and Exeter Institution, The University of Exeter, Natural England, South Devon College and the University of Plymouth. In addition to the partners and funding from Arts Council England, the project is generously supported by the University of Exeter’s Geography Department, the Association for Art History, the Paul Mellon Centre, LewisDavey, and Kaleider.