Artist joins multicultural heritage project

The multicultural heritage project, Telling Our Stories, Finding Our Roots, has announced their new artistic partnership.

Ione Maria Rojas, a British-Mexican artist, facilitator, and food grower, headed off a strong field of applicants to be the appointed artist working on the multicultural history project based in Honiton.

Ione uses mark-making, drawing, and writing to create a dialogue between ourselves, others, and the land we live on. 

She has been working with Key Stage 2 primary children in Devon and Cornwall to deliver creative and engaging workshops. 

For this project, Ione will be partnering with Offwell School, the town’s library, and the renowned Thelma Hulbert Gallery. 

Some questions central to her practice are:

• How can small acts of imagination, creativity, and making disrupt and dismantle dominant thought systems?
• How can working with our hands (in the soil, with clay, through gathering and making) catalyse new conversations or new ways into existing conversations?

Jess Huffman, Honiton Project Coordinator for Telling Our Stories, Finding Our Roots, said: “The shortlisting panel felt Ione answered the brief well. We are confident that she could work with us to ensure the materials she uses will reflect something of the stories we are telling as well as be immersive and fun for the children she’ll be working with. The workshop suggestions sound really engaging, and we felt excited about how this might materialise as a tangible exhibition piece for later in the year.

“We felt Ione’s personal experience will ensure her work aligns closely and sympathetically with the project themes, and she could bring something new to the project that will help us engage audiences in a different way.”

On learning of her appointment, Ione said: “I'm really excited to be working on this project and getting to know some of the hidden histories of Honiton. I think there's a lot of polarisation that happens with the urban-rural divide, with many people moving to the cities to experience a more diverse culture. 

“Yet there are these multicultural histories that pulse through the countryside too, with pastoral England being inseparable from the realities of colonisation—a past that deserves a closer look. This opportunity offers a creative and tangible way into doing so, getting to know the stories of individuals who've lived in the town, imagining into their realities.”

This opportunity is funded by the Creative East Devon Fund through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund. 

The project will commence in September, with the final exhibition set to launch on November 22 at Thelma Hulbert Gallery in Honiton. 

The exhibition will be open to the public from November 23 to December 22.

You can learn more about the project here and can see examples of Ione's work on her website.