Dreams & Realities: reflections on an amazing tour
12 venues, hundreds of visitors, wonderful feedback, and now a spin-off… it’s fair to say the Dreams & Realities tour has been a success!
“It has been amazing experience,” says the artist, Stephen Martin.
“I’ve met some really interesting people, and I’ve been moved by people’s stories of their experiences living and dealing with poverty and daily hardship. People’s responses to my portraits have been positive and enthusiastic.”
A nationwide tour
Stephen painted portraits of himself and nine other people living in hardship in Sheffield. Each portrait showed the person’s reality, plus the dreams they would pursue if they were not held back by poverty.
All the people are connected to choirs at St Mary’s Church in Sheffield, and the project was coordinated by Yo Tozer-Loft, community choirmaster, with support from Church Action on Poverty.
The paintings were unveiled at St Mary’s last March, then toured the country, reaching:
- Newcastle
- Stoke
- York
- Camden
- Leeds
- Halifax
- Manchester
- Barking & Dagenham
- Portsmouth
- Retford
- the Greenbelt Festival
A deeply moving exhibition
Stephen says: “I had a strange sensation each time I visited and saw the paintings again – it has been like meeting old friends again! And there have been some really positive reactions.
“The events at Camden and Halifax especially were amazing, because there were other people also sharing stories of hardship. They talked about their own situations and issues; it has been so moving. In Halifax, I’m now working on a follow-up, doing five paintings with people there.”
Yo: I feel blessed to have played a part
Yo says that when she had the idea for the project, she wanted to:
- raise money to keep her community choir going
- highlight the shocking realities of everyday poverty in the UK before the election
- dignify the singers who live on the frontline of poverty by asking them to have their portraits painted (as the rich do) and by depicting their dream as well as their reality
- take up the kind offer of Stephen to paint the portraits.
By Summer 2023, she was already approaching and interviewing singers, then she heard Gordon Brown speak about the new #letsendpoverty movement at the 2023 Greenbelt Festival.
Yo says: “God was at work! (I had already unexpectedly bumped into Michelle who I wanted to invite to the project but had lost touch with – Greenbelt was the last place I expected to find her!)
“The #letsendpoverty worker Pete did a really fabulous and energetic job throughout the year finding venues for the exhibition across England and organising an opening event at each place.
“The events were a great forum for meeting and debate amongst people who suffer the effects of poverty plus community leaders and choirs.
“I was really pleased with the uptake and response to the touring exhibition as communities came together for political, informative, solution seeking and sometimes frustrated debate. How can we end poverty in the UK? End the 2 child benefit cap? Bring back fully funded surestart? Introduce Universal Basic Income? We certainly need to communicate with our MPs…
“My late mum, Iris, would be so frustrated to see her own story still being lived- her pathway to education and opportunity blocked by poverty. It meant a lot to me to see the exhibition in Dagenham where she grew up. She achieved so much but still spoke about those lost opportunities in her old age.
“Highlights of the exhibition were the media coverage, the Newcastle, Camden and Portsmouth openings with great speakers, music and crowds, not to mention seeing the paintings back at Greenbelt where the project was ‘blessed’ the previous year!
“I feel blessed myself to have played a part in this project, raising the profile of friends and family still suffering poverty in the UK. As the fifth richest world nation, we can do better!
“Seeing the exhibition and the debate go so far and wide has been like watching my baby grow up, leave home and do something really special and far beyond me!
“Huge thanks to everyone at Church Action on Poverty for all their hard work, especially Pete Duberly, igniting the #letsendpoverty movement with his energy around the paintings and the issue.
“Stephen Martin excelled himself as a painter, working really generously with me on finessing the likenesses and compositions. The biggest thanks for all goes to the generous singers who gave their faces and their stories, dreams and realities to the project.”
