“There’s a saying round here, 'if I win the lottery, the only thing you’ll see is my bum disappearing round the corner' It’s about getting off this estate see” this quote from Dave a Parson Cross resident inspired Olivia Punnett, currently in her final year on our Engaged Practice Starter Studio Programme, to make this new work PX Scratch Cards: Silver Linings

Olivia has been placing these images around the neighbourhood for people to ‘happen’ across and reveal. She has found a way of placing a magnetic surface onto photographic prints that she has taken of the houses in Parson Cross. Metal filings sit on the top, creating a grey scratch card type surface. The use of metal is a reference to the steel industry link; the estate being built largely to re-house steel workers and their families after the slum clearances.

Underneath the metal on each one is the fantastical escape route to Parson Cross! Olivia says “after talking with Dave it made me think ‘what if the escape was right where you are?’ I made this work as a response that maybe you don’t need to leave a place but just ‘see’ it in a different way. Art can provide a new perspective, a glimpse of something, and the glimpses of what I see as charming in Parson cross are what I am sharing in these works.”

Olivia is also curating the Graduate Showcase Windows as part of this years Wirksworth Festival.