Jack Arts

Persistence Works Gallery: Landmark

Reflecting on a year-long project by artists Christopher Jarratt, Emilie Taylor, and a group of eleven people changing or recovering their habits towards alcohol or drug use, Landmark is an arts and craft exhibition with an accompanying billboard trail tracking across Sheffield.

Taking place during National Recovery Month, the spotlighted pieces were made using heritage techniques – creating handmade flags and ceramic flasks imbued with folklore and tradition, that equally interpret how personal journeys, no matter which time period they occur in, are an integral part of the fabric of an urban area.

As Landmark’s artworks were responses to sites around Sheffield that held personal significance to those who made them, our street posters – featuring digital reproductions – included QR codes that scanned to reveal the story around each site, alongside information about recovery services in the city. Celebrating the Persistence Works Gallery exhibition at the Yorkshire Artspace, a medieval banquet was staged beneath the Landmark flags to bring together the past, the present, and raise discussions about the sometimes-difficult journeys that so often connect the two – using art and its practice as the evocative interpreter.