We are an arts charity based in Ipswich,
a town in the east of England.
We create art, we make the SPILL Festival of Performance and we run events, groups,
OFFSITE
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Loads of our work happens away from the Think Tank, with much of it offered for free. We regularly work in the town centre and on the streets of Ipswich, in youth clubs, down by the waterfront and sometimes in the countryside. We also regularly provide free activities to organisations and groups of people that otherwise might not usually experience anything arts based at all. Lots of this happens quietly, away from our marketing and social media, and is some of our favourite, most meaningful work.
THE PYRE PARADE
The Pyre Parade is made by the Rough Band and is produced by SPILL. The parade first took to Ipswich streets in the 2018 SPILL Festival and then returned the following year, by public demand. It is now an annual event. Black dog effigies guard special collection boxes for people’s bad news at select locations across the town. Everyone is welcome to join together and form a noisy parade, marching our bad news through the town, accompanied by a Pyre Choir and other special guest performers. The badness is then set alight in Christchurch Park, where it is engulfed in flames. This is followed by shared food and drinks. In the lead up to the Pyre Parade there are multiple ways to participate, all of which are free.
THE IPSWICH BISCUIT
The Ipswich Biscuit was a large scale public competition in 2019 inviting the community to dream up a recipe they thought would best represent the town in biscuit form. We asked people to accompany their recipe with an image and a story or fact about why Ipswich is special to them.
A community panel made up of people from across cultures, organisations, ages and expertise were invited to help shortlist a selection of entries to a final 10, through taste testing lots of shortlisted bakes, noting their texture, appearance and stories.
The final 10 entries were anonymously presented at the Ipswich Biscuit Gala, held in the Town Hall. Hundreds of people taste tested, and read the attached stories, being given one token each to vote on their favourite.
Later that day the Gala was officially opened by a 4 year old called Cairo. Following this we had live music from local singer Cherise Phillips, biscuit related games and activities, biscuit bingo, a talk on the heritage of biscuits from Professor Martin Jones and a world record attempt at biscuit eating. The Ipswich Biscuit winner was announced by the Mayor of Ipswich, Jan Parry and was a lemon biscuit, lovingly baked and adapted through the generations by 15 year old Eleanor Taddesse.
Since then, Pacitti Company have collaborated with Suffolk One’s Graphic Design students to produce a brand and packaging for the Ipswich Biscuit. Pacitti Company are now in serious biscuit development, with the aim to launch the Ipswich Biscuit at SPILL Festival 2021 and have it on shelves to buy shortly afterwards.
THE IPSWICH BISCUIT AT THE YMCA + PAPWORTH TRUST
Alongside schools resource and toolkits for people at home to get baking, we offered workshops for residents at the YMCA and people who attend Papworth Trust.
At the YMCA the workshops focussed on the history of biscuits inclusive of recognising and exploring diverse cultural backgrounds of the people in the sessions. Biscuits and herbs & spices were brought from all over the world, because you can’t very well talk about biscuits and not eat one or five!
At Papworth Trust we offered to give some top tips to adults with special educational needs and the staff who support them. We utilised the basic biscuit toolkit to get inspirational juices flowing, and then with a tea and freshly baked biscuits we had a chat about what herbs, spices or ingredients they might be able to add to make the bake their own.
CLARION CALL - SPECIAL VOICES
At SPILL 2018, the giant sound installation Clarion Call rang out the voices of women and girls in daily incantations to the setting sun, broadcast with audio technology employed for emergency and control, repurposed as a mechanism for public ritual. Devised by Melbourne based artists Byron J. Scullin, Hannah Fox and Thomas Supple, Clarion Call was a SPILL Commission and part of 14–18 NOW, the UK’s arts programme for the First World War centenary.
Clarion Call featured world renowned artists Beth Gibbons (Portishead), Elizabeth Fraser (Cocteau Twins), Melanie Pappenheim and Elaine Mitchener. Blended with these voices were vocals from local Ipswich singer Cherise Phillips, women from the Wattisham and Honnington Military Wives Choir, girls from Copleston School, with some girls from the Roma Choir and South Street Kids, all under the guidance of folk revivalist Shirley Collins, whose song Our Captain Cried formed the basis of the work.
With the ambition to try and best represent Ipswich, the local groups were invited to sing from their own venues. Byron J. Scullin visited with a touring size recording kit to work with each of them. The results of this were remarkable and this incredible work was performed to over 500,000 people across the 11 days of SPILL Festival 2018.
Alongside this specific participatory strategy, a WW1 resource pack was produced and offered as a free resource to primary and secondary schools across the region, containing targeted key stage content for a variety of age groups. It suggested pathways for schools to take across the festival and beyond, to engage with Clarion Call and also other artworks such as Turned Red Earth and the Processions Exhibition, both of which also offered content relating to WW1.