Slow Notes 03

By Lucy Grubb, Ikon Youth Programme Co-ordinator

We began our mooring in Stourbridge with a visit from Glasshouse College students. Here, we worked with Dale Hipkiss to ask: ‘Does the current architecture of the Black Country reference natural forms and the limestone landscape?’

This workshop was influenced by the ancient Silurian landscape, exploring the region’s prehistoric marine life and the patterns formed by its limestone.

Together, we thought about how these patterns could inform future sculptures and architectural interventions, celebrating the Black Country’s rich geological history alongside its industrial heritage.

For this workshop, Adam (current IYP Member) was our artist assistant and honorary crew member during his week of work experience with us at IYP and on Slow Boat. 

On Monday 8 June, we were invited to visit Riverside House. We walked together along the canal and onto Slow Boat for a drawing workshop co-designed by Adam. This focused on using carbon copy paper to trace the objects, structures and plants that we saw around Slow Boat.   

We brought these drawings together to make a collective banner, which is now hanging up at Riverside House.  

Midway through our stay in Stourbridge, KEVI College students joined us on Spaceship Slow Boat for a workshop led by artist Emily Scarrott, reimagining Slow Boat and the canal as a speculative landscape of the future.  We ‘woke up’ from cryo-sleep and archived our journey on Spaceship Slow Boat through keyring-making and observational drawing, leaving us to think about the other landscapes we inherit and inhabit.  

Lens-based artist Jermaine Francis has been filming our Slow Boat journeys for a new commission and upcoming project with GRAIN Projects.  Jermaine has since been inducted as Crew member on Slow Boat.   

When we left Stourbridge, we moored at Hawne Basin, where Ikon Youth Programme members filmed and interviewed members of the community in March 2026 as part of Retired Youth, a project with artist Alice Theobald, which launches at Ikon Gallery in September 2026.  

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.

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.