The Broad Cloth

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Three Viking reenactment players, Rekr, Mutter Maia, and Habard stand together by a tree. They wear traditional garb and accessories in blues and greys, with flashes of bright red. Hanging from their belts can be seen weapons, pouches, tools, and furs.

Welcome to The Broad Cloth, an accessible storytelling journey that is woven by community, and weaves communities together.

Through theatre, art, craft, music, community gathering, and the sharing of local wisdom, we collectively imagine Skylark Island, a small fictional island and its community, inspired by the culture and history of our host island and its community.   We are effectively laying a transparency of the fictional island over different real islands, to see what Skylark Island looks like when it is imagined into being with the unique aspects of each different island, and to find the common places where we are all interconnected.   This site will tell you more about how we hope to achieve that, and show you what we've already made.   There is a storyline which runs through everything. We aim to create an authentic environment for this narrative within which we can explore the friction caused when the future makes demands on tradition that it might not be able to accommodate without changing.   There will be ways to get involved in person and also online. We expect the project to run for several years.  

Project Intentions

We'll be focusing on some key areas on each island, and throughout the network of islands and community groups:
Access: accessibility and inclusion, especially in areas like neurodivergence, and for those who have experienced barriers to cultural and community activity
Connecting: making and maintaining connections with, and between, community groups and individuals, on each island and across the whole network
Craft: especially heritage crafts, with a particular focus on textiles
Ecology: especially the impact of climate change
Folk traditions: especially around music and community gathering
The Future: considering models of value and governance for future stability and growth, particularly for community groups and organisations
Heritage: capturing the unique heritage of the islands and their people  

Quick Start

Click here for a quick start without having to read a lot of stuff, use the search feature above, or see the links in the World Codex below.  
"The website is too long, I didn't read it..." Throughout the website you'll find boxes for quick reference, so you don't have to read the whole page. Boxes that are this colour with an alarm clock icon contain real-world information about the project.
If the box is this colour and there's a book icon, that page contains information about the fictional world. This will include the fictional world and core characters we have created as the main structure, and the fictional creations and imaginings of participants.
   

Host Islands

Here are a few of the places who are hosting Skylark. Each one has its own symbol to help identify which pages on this site refer to a particular host island.  
 

Ingøy, Norway

Our producing partner, The Field Station, is an artists' residency on the stunning and remote island of Ingøy off the coast of northern Norway, above the arctic circle. Ingøy is also the archival home for this project: Skylark Island will always be present there in some form. Click here to go to the Ingøy section of this website.  
 

The Isle of Wight

In 2024 we’re aiming to have regular gatherings in The Bay area of Isle of Wight, based in and around Ventnor. Our host venue is Ventnor Exchange, and we'll also be travelling around to meet people and community groups. Click here to go to the Isle of Wight section of this website.  
 

The Digital Island

On our Discord server, we also have a digital 'island' whose participants come from all over the world, and don't necessarily live on an island. New participants from anywhere are welcome here at any time. Click here to go to the Digital Island section of this website and click here to go directly to our Discord server.  
 

The Islands

We're planning to do this on many islands around the British and Nordic coasts. Click below for info about:
Anglesey, Wales
Bornholm, Denmark
The Digital Island
Ingøya, Norway
Isles of Lewis and Harris, Scotland
Isle of Wight, England
Jersey, Channel Islands
Lundy, England