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Birmingham's Midlands Arts Centre (mac) in Cannon Hill Park pioneered access to culture for thousands of families and was the most visited arts centre in the Midlands - attracting half a million visitors a year - until it closed in 2008. 

Workers get stuck into a water feature

Mac is currently in the middle of a massive refurbishment and due to reopen late 2009, bringing back a focal point for contemporary dance, film, music, theatre and comedy.

The arts centre originally opened in 1964, and was built with the help of local and international students as part of a UN work camp in 1960s Birmingham. Mac is trying to trace the young people involved in the construction - were you involved? Do you know people in these pictures?

Constructing the Midlands Arts Centre

Project 18, in July 1963, built the Boundary Water Feature in Cannon Hill Park, which was later removed, whilst Project 16 (June 1964) constructed mac’s Arena Theatre and Project 10 (June 1965) worked on the famous Hexagon block. Camps also took place in Selly Oak and Ladywood.

Tea break

Camping in Cannon Hill Park

The workers were housed in sheds in Cannon Hill Park, spent the days undertaking serious manual labour, cooked their own meals  - and organised their own entertainment. Diaries from the 1964 camp tells us how one Scandinavian student slept under the stars in Cannon Hill Park, whilst another group snuck out after dark to go to a Beatles gig!

Forty years on, mac has joined forces with Coventry-based arts company Talking Birds, and together they are using the international work camps as inspiration for a new project.

Hard labour at the work camps

Work Camp 2009

Taking place in July 2009, Project 42 will bring together about thirty 18-25 year olds to re-enact some of the experiences from the original work camps. The group will work, eat and socialise together – but instead of hard labour, the 2009 group will explore and interpret the history and legacy of the camps through film and performance.

Half of the group will come from Finland to participate in the project, led by community arts and theatre company CulturaMobila (www.culturamobila.com).

Louisa Davies, Arts Programming Manager, mac: We plan to reconstruct the sheds that housed the original campers (although we won’t be living in them!) in the vicinity of the Arena Theatre, and use the work camp diary as a starting point for our daily activities. At the end of the project we’ll open the sheds to the public to share what has been created.

An al fresco mac dinner

Camp legacy

Nick Walker, Director of Talking Birds: The Work Camp Diary from 1964 shows participants felt that being a part of the camps would prove to be an important time in their lives, a valuable learning experience. I’m keen to know what people feel about it forty years on. Was it as significant as it felt at the time? Has there been any legacy of it for you?

Remember the work camps at mac?

So if you remember international work camps taking place at mac or in Birmingham more generally, or you participated in a camp and have a memory to share, mac would be very pleased to hear from you.

Please contact Alison Watson of Project 42 on 07855468719 or alijwat@hotmail.com