Young people need more opportunities to be creative. This project ‘Borderlands’ will allow young people (and all generations) to get creative responding through different artforms to music, photographs, poetry and song that conjure up wild imaginative landscapes.

The Borderlands project will provide FREE resources and workshops to help young people find different ways into creativity, tapping into myths and magic, firing up the imagination.

We have already received significant funding from the Vaughan Williams Foundation who have supported the composing stage of the project, enabling me to compose 'Borderlands' for the Fitzwilliam String Quartet, inspired by three photographs which, for me, conjure up dragons... (scroll down to learn more about the photos that inspired me... \I/

So - what is happenening next in the Borderlands Project? The project is underway and there are three stages to complete:

Step 1 (April 2024): We will film the live Borderlands event with Liz's music and words inspired by wild landscapes, performed by world-class musicians the Fitzwilliam String Quartet and mezzo-soprano Suzie Purkis (more info here about the live Borderlnads event).

Step 2 (Summer 2024): Release the film on YouTube with a set of Borderlands Kits designed for young people, schools and individuals to get creative. Each Borderlands Kit will share tools for expressing individual ideas effectively and show how to develop new ideas artistically.

Step 3 (Autumn 2024): Creative landscape workshops with local schools and youth groups.

Composer Liz Dilnot Johnson

Singer Suzie Purkis performing one of Liz's songs

Thank you for any support you are able to offer.

All the films and Borderlands Kits will be provided free to anyone who wants to explore their own creativity. In order to develop these free resources with high quality content, however, there are costs involved.... Musicians, sound technicians and filmmakers need to be paid. The money we are raising here will pay for the creative team to make the initial Borderlands film, and for some time for me to develop the creative kits. All the films and resources will then be available for FREE on Youtube and my website. By supporting this project you will be supporting the wonderful creative artists in my team... and developing the creative artists of the future!

If we can raise the full amount I will be able to offer a series of free workshops to local schools and youth groups.

Please share the campaign and help to inspire young people to discover their own creativity inspired by our landscapes. THANK YOU!!

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More about the Borderlands Project...how it all started:

My initial idea for this project came to me when I saw and captured on my phone the most amazing night sky image that made me imagine a sky dragon stretching its wings across the darkness of the night. Since then I have been looking for other dragons in the wild landscapes around me.

PHOTO 1: a bright moon with a dragon's wing stretched across the night sky on Offa's Dyke, the borderlands between England and Wales (see the main photo for the Borderlands project above)

PHOTO 2: a high hill with dragon coils around it's peak with puffs of smoke occasionally drifting up from hidden nostrils at British Camp - the Herefordshire Beacon - an iron age fort that formed part of an ancient boundary for peoples long ago.

PHOTO 3: At sunrise on the Yorkshire coast I saw water dragons riding the waves, lit up by low bright golden light, endlessly moving and snorting spray and spume at Filey Beach.

Above is photo two - see the dragon? And the smoke from his nostrils?

I used these images and my dragon ideas to create new words and music. 'Borderlands' for string quartet will be premiered on April 28th 2024 at Elmslie House, Malvern, not far from where this photo was taken.

For more information about the live Borderlands event click here