Slow Notes 02

We continued our Slow Boat journey in Tipton. Ikon Youth Programme and Rowley Regis Youth Club got together for a Slow Boat Social, where we got to know each other over snacks, covered the windows with our words and drawings, shared stories and music and made new connections!   

On Saturday 16 May, we hosted Your Walsall on Water programmed by the Walsall For All Archive Project.  Members of the public explored the Jack Haddock Archive Collection and made collaborative maps, tracing the spaces, stories and memories that shape ‘our Walsall’. Thinking about the canal as something lived with, travelled through and remembered across generations. 

Towards the end of our time in Tipton, Sandwell Youth Service came onto Slow Boat for an evening workshop with artist Laura Onions and Multistory. Using branches, sticks and leaves collected along the towpath, we experimented with printmaking using materials gathered from the canal side as mark-making tools.  

We are continuing our canal journey in and around the West Midlands and the Black Country. Join us on this reflective journey, and stay connected for our next Slow Note, where we will be moored in Stourbridge and Halesowen for artist-led workshops with school and college groups across June and July 2026. 

About Slow Boat
With the support of Freelands Foundation, over six years (2021-27) Ikon Youth Programme (IYP) navigates the waterways on board Slow Boat, a converted narrow boat. IYP are collaborating with creative thinkers and makers to reimagine Slow Boat as a local art school. 

About IYP  

Ikon Youth Programme (IYP) is a group of emerging artists, designers, writers, photographers, policy makers and earth scientists (16–21yrs). We co-lead programming, exhibitions and events, working with regional and national artists through workshops, shared resource and ongoing knowledge exchange. Ikon Youth Programme is funded by Freelands Foundation.