The Dark Store is an exciting new collaborative project between Sarah and writer
Charlotte Oliver. It shines a spotlight on those who would not ordinarily have a chance to share their story: hidden workers from the 19th century up to the present day including the covid era.
The Dark Store is named after the retail distribution centres that cater exclusively to online shopping: places where no members of the public will ever browse.
Below, you can listen to clips from three of the songs that form part of this hour long radio ballad. You can also see events where you can hear The Dark Store.
Bandcamp
Listen to 4 full tracks from The Dark Store here: https://thedarkstore.bandcamp.com/
More about The Dark Store
The Dark Store is an hour long radio ballad: a collection of spoken word and nine original folk songs, highlighting the significance of the hidden labour and lives of essential workers, throughout history to the present day. The project uses historical material: the work of governesses in the 19th century; the herring girls who worked the north-east coast of England, and miners in the 20th century. Contemporary supermarket and dark store workers, a Glaswegian lorry driver, and NHS nurses tell their stories of the covid era.
Writer Clare Shaw speaks of her online writing sessions during lockdown with USDAW workers, in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. An office cleaner tells of her daily essential work. These provide fabric that is worked into poetry, folk music and song by a collaboration of writer Charlotte Oliver and composer Sarah Dew.
We provide a platform where voices are heard. We challenge invisibility; promote respect; applaud the creativity and struggles of those working in ‘the dark’, and disrupt preconceptions of historical forms and folk ballads.
The Dark Store:
Installed in The Sitwell Library, Woodend Gallery, Scarborough from 11.30am to 4pm, on Saturday 12th and Sunday 13th November, 2022. For more information see here: https://www.crescentarts.co.uk/whats_on/event-the-dark-store/
Premiered at South Square Gallery from Friday 3rd June until 31st July 2022.
See https://southsquarecentre.co.uk/
Broadcast in full on CAMP radio; 17.06.2022. See http://listen.camp
Broadcast in full by Leeds Chapel FM community radio; 20.05.2022.
See https://www.chapelfm.co.uk/
Further opportunities to hear The Dark Store to be confirmed.
For information about Charlotte Oliver, see www.charlotteoliver.com
For information about Clare Shaw, see www.clareshaw.co.uk/
Supported by Arts Council England; South Square Arts Centre;
Arcade Production Company, Scarborough; Chapel FM.
Please contact Sarah or Charlotte for further information.
