Sam Williams Studio + Cardboard Box Company

Fabula un Facto was a playful installation that emulated industrial architecture.

Inspired by both the culture and the physical environment of Cardboard Box Company, it invited audiences to experience the wonder of the factory floor, as seen through the eyes of Williams during her residency.

Growing up in a theme park where her family worked, an integral strand of Williams’ practice is curiosity – something that was imbued throughout this work. The installation borrowed visual language from the creativity and innovation that exists, often unseen, in the production industry, and the staged experience and complex engineering of theme parks. Comparisons are drawn between the unlikely duo inspiring the name ‘play is in the making’ or Fabula un Facto.

During her residency, Williams was able to get close to the design process that occurs daily in the factory – understanding the actions of translating the 3D into 2D, and back into 3D again. Collaborating with the innovative designers at Cardboard Box Company, she could observe the communication and exchange of information that goes on between the teams – each person’s role integral to the process as a whole.

The installation evoked a sense of wonder; What is it? How does it work? What does it do? Rather than a linear narrative, it offered an explorative experience that invited you to consider the possibility that, even if you don’t really understand something, you can still be in awe of it.

A playful structure with passive interactive elements, it was both factory and machine. An immersive representation of the infinite nature of human innovation and a joyful reminder that play is, indeed, in the making.

A direct development of this work, Folly! (Permission to Play) is a bold, interactive touring play structure that invites you to find your play. Inspired by early play philosophy and playground design, the work is part playground, part performance space, and part invitation to play.

The work I created during my AiM residency felt like a return to the kind of work I had always wanted to explore – multi-art form, immersive and ambitious theatrical experiences. The trust and support from the National Festival of Making team to include a short performance from my developing circus practice really gave me a taste of new possibilities in my work and has led directly to the format I’m exploring through my Blueprint R&D.

– Sam Williams

The Artist

Sam Williams imagines a world where physical limitations and perceived wisdom operate in flux. Her work draws from her childhood growing up in a theme park, Drayton Manor, where her family (and later she) worked. Using play structures, bold graphics and colourful patterns she dreams up environments that evoke joy and curiosity for audiences old and young.

Website

The Manufacturer

Cardboard Box Company is a state-of-the-art corrugated sheet plant that designs and manufactures corrugated board, based in Accrington, East Lancashire. The fourth Art in Manufacturing residency the company has embarked on, their history dates back to the mid-1970s. Their constant innovation since has led to their products receiving national and international print and design awards.

Website

Funders and Partners

Scaffold design by Neil Davies

With thanks to: Wade Pickering – Pickerings Perforated Products for the donation of the conveyor tubes; the team at Cardboard Box Company in particular Marc Stobbs, Tom Penman, James Parkinson, Kristian Howson and Peter Longworth.

For the first time in many years I feel like I have had the room to create something of scale, without a specific brief – it feels like a return to the sort of work that I really want to be making.

Sam Williams, Artist

This was an amazing, but hugely complex project to work on, however we are incredibly proud of the finished project. It was a delight to have Sam in residency with us to create such an iconic art installation, our third at the festival’s ‘Art in Manufacturing’ and the largest exhibit at this year’s event.

Marc Stobbs, Packaging Design Manager at Cardboard Box Company