New arts project will tell the stories of K&J workers

Did you, or someone you know, used to work at the Kenrick & Jefferson print works? Do you have stories about the factory and the amazing women who worked there? We’d love to hear from you.

Artist Sophie Huckfield is producing an arts and heritage project about local women’s contribution to what was a thriving local business and is still an important landmark in West Bromwich today. Sophie will be conducting interviews and delivering free, creative workshops throughout the first half of 2023 to create a booklet and an outdoor exhibition that will share the stories and photographs gathered during the project. The exhibition and booklet will be launched in late Summer 2023, at a celebratory event for everyone involved.

You can contribute in any way you like: by telling us your story or a story that you’ve heard; sharing personal photographs and memorabilia; and / or getting involved with creating the booklet.

This project is a continuation of Sophie Huckfield’s long-term aim to celebrate the overlooked stories of working women in Sandwell and the Black Country, and is funded by Historic England’s Everyday Heritage Grants. In 2021, Sophie produced the oral history project Women, Work & Wednesbury, interviewing women working along the shops on Wednesbury high street, or who had previously worked at the Patent Shaft steel works before it closed in 1980. The stories gathered were shared back in a booklet which was distributed across shops and community spaces in Wednesbury.

We’d be very grateful if you could share the details of this project with anyone who worked at K&J, or who had a family member or a friend who worked there.

Sophie Huckfield

(she/they) is a cross disciplinary artist and researcher with a background in arts, design and engineering. Based at Grand Union Studios in Birmingham and London, UK. She employs traditional and experimental modes of production such as craft & making, lens based media, performance, sound, workshops and writings. To deconstruct, subvert and interrogate metaphors & stories around social class, making cultures, technological discourses and labour practices. Her practice is collaborative and she works with a range of organisations and individuals across disciplines to meditate upon the way we think about the world shaped by the tools at our disposal.