Berry Hill

Our Approach:

To raise awareness of the phone box as a space that could be engaged with and utilised by the local community.

To make a number of interventions in and around the phone box - encouraging gatherings and local interactions at the location.

“If thic box could talk!” Community member, Berry Hill.

Our Aim:

To turn the phone box into an interactive space that people would be able to engage with based on the style of Google's 'Alexa'.

Our phone box would be voice/motion activated.

Research in Berry Hill highlighted a strong community spirit and a deep connection with the 'vorest' dialect so we hoped for the box's personality to centre around this and include key 'Forest Dialect' phrases.

Alongside this work we intended to produce a final closing event for the Phone Box Art Trail on the final day of the trail (Sunday). This event would be created with the local community and work alongside The Globe pub that is situated next to the phone box. we would play music and invite local groups to get involved. Refreshments would be provided, drawing on traditional and modern 'Vorest' recipes.

27/10/19 Making Contact
Cleaning the phone boxes and leaving calling cards to introduce the project and invite locals to get involved.

By way of encouraging people to notice the space we left project cards in the phone box - a playful take on the well known 'calling cards' - but this time for a community function, placing the phone box at the heart of community action.

08/11/19 Interview with BBC Radio Gloucestershire

An introduction to our work, promoting the upcoming arts trail and putting a call out for phone box inspired songs to create a playlist for the upcoming pop up event.

Part 1 Interview

00:00 / 08:49

Part 2Interview

00:00 / 07:38

13/11/19 Balloon Intervention

Balloons were left in the phone boxes as a pop-up intervention with the view of drawing attention... something's going to happen!...

Invoking a party atmosphere - that of a gathering.

16/11/19 Berry Hill Engagement Event

Another pop up gathering with a gazebo, bunting, refreshments and snacks. Invites were delivered locally before the event as well as on social media and by email. We played a specially selected playlist with songs that were related to telephone boxes and telephones. We met locals, recorded some stories and had conversations with community members.

"If only that box could talk."

“Sitting out ere in the summer, back then that phone box was the only connection you ad, it would ring and we'd take it in turns to answer and I'll never forget this once a woman phoned for me and our mother answered the phone”

“Good ole days they was... but it got a lot to answer for that phone box, a lot to answer for!”

“Weekends that phone would never stop ringin.”

During our research we discovered The Changing Forest by Dennis Potter (born and bred in the Forest). Written in the 1960's, the book describes the impact of the profound cultural and social change happening at that time and the resistance to change present in the older Foresters then. A time of change that still very much resonates across post-industrial communities now.

“Strongly 'local' speech can be a sign of narrowness and isolation, and in speech, especially, the Forest of Dean is a jungle of change: already there is a tremendous, dictionary-like difference between the talk of the old Foresters and that of the younger people who are displacing them; not just in the choice of words, but in the way of saying them, the way language unknowingly breaks out from the inside of a person and echoes along the shifting boundaries of a community.” Dennis potter in 'The Changing Forest'

27/12/19 Berry Hill Christmas Lights Event

At this event we asked:

What's the best thing about Berry Hill?

How has the way people communicate changed?

PLAY>>>

“It's a great community spirit.”

“People really look out for each other.”

“If thic box could talk.”

“People don't talk face to face anymore.”

“Conversation is way gone now... and the forest dialect, you don't get dialect on a screen do you?”

Other information, key findings and research that has informed our approach.

Finding out more about the Vorest dialect through research at Forest of Dean Archives and meeting locals who speak the dialect.

Making partnerships. The pub was excited to work with us for the closing event; supporting us to host a gathering in the car park that would accompany our phone box 'Alexa' style intervention.

Working with the Innovation Lab to explore and use new technologies.

Engaging with active businesses and groups:
The Globe pub,

The Christmas Commitee,

Berry Hill Orchard Group.

Other relevant phone box projects:

Hello Lamp Post (Playable Cities), Wind Telephone (Otsuchi, Japan) and Sounds From Another Town (B Arts)