18 months of collaboration between local artists and the Bodmin community culminates in a week-long exhibition at The Old Library called Routes and Roots.
The building, itself a legacy of the great Cornish philanthropist John Passmore Edwards, will be filled with sound, image, story, and conversation. Every room will tell a different part of Bodmin’s story: the walls lined with photographs, zines to leaf through, sounds to explore, and films to experience.
It’s not just an exhibition, it’s a celebration. Of memory and imagination. Of heritage and possibility. Of Bodmin’s past, present, and future, as told by the people who live it.
Whether you’ve lived in Bodmin all your life, just arrived, or simply care about what makes communities thrive, we hope you’ll join us to listen, to reflect, and maybe even to share your own story.
The artists and work:
Cornish Lens
This strand began with a remarkable archive — the George Ellis Collection, a treasure trove of mid-20th century photographs capturing everyday life in Cornwall. Working with Kresen Kernow, we focused in on the Bodmin images, opening them up to new interpretation and new eyes.
Led by the Henwyn Collective, a series of hands-on photography workshops gave participants the chance to dive into these historic images and reflect on what they showed. The result is a living visual conversation between past and present.
Running in parallel, two creative young women, Millie and Ellie, led a team of young people in producing BodZine, a youth-led publication that weaves together photography, collage, interviews, and personal reflections. Across four themed issues - Nostalgia, Growing, Threads, and Record, these zines have opened up bold and tender conversations about identity, memory, and what it means to belong to a place like Bodmin.
The People’s Map of Bodmin
If the first strand invited us to see Bodmin, this one invites us to listen. Developed with sound artist Arlo Anwin, the People’s Map is an audio-visual portrait of the town, built from field recordings, spoken memories, and composed soundscapes gathered from all across Bodmin. A journey through Bodmin not by road or postcode, but by memory, sound, and sensation.
It’s a map that doesn’t just show you where Bodmin is, it shows you how it feels.
The People’s Library
What began as an idea for a single feature documentary evolved into something much more personal and much more rooted in learning and youth voice.
Filmmaker Jon Drever worked weekly with a group of university students on the Digital Media Degree at Bodmin College, with additional sessions for three younger participants from the school.
The result is a collection of eight short documentaries, conceived, filmed, and edited by the students themselves. The subjects are as wide-ranging as the town itself: a hillfort next to someone’s house, the evolving role of the local church, graffiti as folk legend, or the relationship between pubs and community life.
Drawing inspiration from the town’s past while listening closely to its present, Roots and Routes has brought together people of all ages and backgrounds to tell their stories, share their perspectives, and help shape a fresh understanding of what heritage can mean in a town like this.
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