Kim Farr: #DoncasterEffect
Kim Farr is a recent graduate of the BA Fine Art and Craft Program at Doncaster University Centre. She is actively involved with the New Fringe, helping and supporting local artists and creative artists to develop their work.
“When the picture was taken the new fringe had residency in the old atteys building on Cleveland Street. So much was happening at the time. Exhibitions. Plans for workshops. Social get togethers. A place for artists and art lovers to come and just be themselves. Not pretentious. Just engage with others and a space to create.
This was my final year of fine art and craft degree at Doncaster college so a dissertation had to be done and my final major project. Without doncaster college being open, without the facilities available, my work has taken a completely different direction. Hopefully for the better but I do wonder how different it would have been. No end of degree show and graduation ceremony unknown
My mental health was pretty bad around May time but with help from family and friends came through it. Things could have been a hell of a lot worse. We are very lucky!
I hope that it has made us better people and we appreciate things more. Doncaster is a great place and I’m sure things will bounce back. We have a knack of doing that in Doncaster. The new fringe has moved into a new building at 1 Portland Place. Artists are slowly taking residence up again. Obviously adhering to social distancing.
Hopefully I have achieved the result I need as I have been accepted to do a masters of curatorial studies at Leeds arts University in September.
Kim is also part the Continuation Art Exhibition, which is on at The Corn Exchange on Saturday 24th October 1 -3pm
About the Doncaster Effect
Over 2019 Doncopolitan Founder Warren Draper was commissioned by Doncaster Council to create a photography archive of Doncaster’s residents. The aim of this project was to produce an important record of individuals that are redefining life in the town.
Over the years, we’ve heard Doncaster be called a “prison for the employed“, “cultural desert” and “basket case of the north“. National news can often present Doncaster and Northern towns as backwards, poor and racist. Over the years, working closely with residents and local people, we’ve seen a counter narrative to this; stories often not covered by the national news. People striving to create art, opening and running successful businesses, becoming social media influencers and leading activists, are pursuing national, important campaigns. This archive is an important record of 50 local people and their lives in Doncaster right now.
Our plan was to exhibit this archive in September 2020 to bring together all the participants in a mammoth gathering of Doncaster trail blazers. Sadly, due to Covid-19, the project has had to be re-invented. We’ll be archiving the project online for 2020, but we hope we can exhibit the project somewhere in 2021.
The title “The Doncaster Effect” came about via the Guardian Journalist John Harris, who wrote in the acclaimed publication the Idler Magazine “If you want to understand modern Britain today, Doncaster is a pretty good place to start”.
We’d like to thank Doncaster Council and Arts Council England for funding this project and for all the participants for giving up their time to take part.
Hello it’s Doncopolitan
We wanted to let you know that Doncopolitan is currently being funded by the Arts Council England Emergency Covid-19 Fund. This is helping us to develop our print magazine and
festival into an online format where we can pay local artists and writers to be part of our online arts festival and monthly newsletter. We want to continue to develop this way of working in the future. We want to create paid opportunities for writers and artists to create on their own terms. We are reaching out to you as a regular reader to ask if it would be possible to consider becoming a Patreon of our work. Patreon is an online fundraising platform it’s easy to sign-up; you can pay as little as £3.00 per month which will allow us to continue to be an independent voice for our town.
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