Legendary Bootle nightclub Quadrant Park commemorated in new project · News ⟋ RAQueue Up And Dance invites local people to create a collaborative archive inspired by the venue.A new community project is celebrating the legacy of Quadrant Park, a legendary club in the northern English town of Bootle.
Open from 1986 through 1991, the 2,400-capacity spot was one of the UK’s first superclubs. The commemorative project, titled Queue Up And Dance, is a collaboration between Sefton Libraries, Rule of Threes Arts and artists Dave Evans and Melissa Kains. The project is funded by Historic England’s Everyday Heritage grant programme and the The National Lottery Heritage Fund.
The aim, according to the website, is to invite “those who went to Quadrant Park in its heyday and young people living in Bootle today to collaboratively develop an archive, exhibition and new creative projects inspired by the club’s history and the early DIY culture of rave.” In October 1990, Quadrant Park hosted the UK’s first licensed all-night party, converting a 24-hour snooker hall into a venue.
“The idea [for the project] came from some conversations with Sefton Libraries and the original Quadrant Park DJs Mike Knowler and Andy Carroll,” Evans said. “I started doing some research and found that there’s already loads of stuff online: a really active Facebook group, QUADRANT PARK REUNIONS, with over 9,500 members, and Quad mix tapes and flyers dotted around the web here and there.”
He added: “It’s important to preserve and honour the heritage of Quadrant Park for lots of reasons. Most importantly, for me, is that it’s a great story of working-class people making something happen for themselves, especially during a difficult time. Also, that it happened in Bootle is something we wanted to shout about. To think of, say, Frankie Bones coming from New York, to play in a snooker club in Bootle is just amazing.”
So far in 2024, the project has hosted a selection of workshops helping young people gain skills in journalism, risograph flyer printing, music production and DJing. Another DJing course is planned for October, alongside further sessions on event management, graphic design and broader artistic development. Material from the workshops, combined with bits from the communal archive, will form part of a closing art exhibition in 2025 (date TBC).
In its 5 years, Quadrant Park welcomed many seminal electronic acts, including LFO, N-Joi, Joey Beltram, Sasha and Laurent Garnier.
If you’d like to get involved with the project, you can sign up now as a volunteer.
Find out more via Instagram.
Source link : https://ra.co/news/81073
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Publish date : 2024-08-12 12:26:21
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