Elsecar Heritage Centre Sitescape
About the design
During the 18th and 19th centuries, Elsecar transformed from a small hamlet into a thriving industrial hub. By 1870, it had evolved into a significant village boasting collieries, engineering works, ironworks, a canal, railways, and other industrial facilities. What is now the Elsecar Heritage Centre are beautifully preserved buildings that were at the centre of that production and now host a variety of events.
Through creative writing workshops and activities playing with the creative use of text with visitors and local residents, I created text art pieces that captured the spirit of Elsecar past and present, and projected these onto the buildings. Documenting these projections through photography and creating them into a large composite digital display, the work serves as a poetic testament to Elsecar’s cultural, historical, and architectural heritage.
- Elisa Artesero
How to use the sitescape
Can you find these scenes in the townscape?
Mill: This is a creative composite of the inside of the vast rolling mill in the historic ironworks, playfully evoking some of the sounds that would have been heard during production.
Poem: This descriptive and rhythmic poem was written by a talented young visitor to the Heritage Centre.
Menu: One easy way to connect to the past is through knowing what people ate. Here is the menu put on for 70 miners when the King and Queen visited Elsecar in 1944. You can just imagine the scene and smells of the food!
About the artist
Elisa Artesero
Elisa Artesero is a UK-based contemporary visual artist primarily creating light and text artworks within different environments at a range of scales. She has exhibited across the UK, Iceland, France, Montenegro and the Faroe Islands creating both temporary and permanent artworks in the public realm.
Awards: Darc Awards Shortlist 2023; Aesthetica Art Prize long-list 2023; 40under40 Lighting Award Winner 2021; Darc Awards Shortlists 2016 and 2017, Signature Art Prize long-list 2015, Curator Choice for Fine Art selected by Tim Marlow (White Cube, Royal Academy, Design Museum) 2014.
Key Achievements: Sculpture in the City 2019-25 exhibiting artist; “A Tap, a Click, and a Thump” immersive exhibition at the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, 2024; ‘Away with the Faeries’ permanent artwork in Perth, Scotland 2023; permanent outdoor art scheme ‘Between the Sun and the Moon’ in Oxford, 2022; purchase of ‘The Garden of Floating Words’ for permanent exhibition outside 70 St Mary Axe in central London 2021; projecting ‘Tonight We Dream’ onto the side of a mountain in Iceland 2017; solo exhibition ‘Building Text’ at Broadgate London 2018; large-scale DREAMERS installation for Lumiere Durham Festival 2015.
Artesero is currently working on major commissions for a large-scale public realm artworks including for a new development in East Croydon, UK, due to open in Spring 2025. She continues to create light and text art for permanent and temporary installations in the public realm across the UK and internationally.
The ‘Principal Townscapes’ project has been commissioned and funded by Barnsley Council's Cultural Development Fund programme, Storying Barnsley.