The fun Head Over Heels exhibition is based on the serious exploration of the past and present by a range of Oxfordshire Community Groups, writes Anne James.

The thrust is about partnerships and visiting it is definitely an interactive experience. There is a dress-up, area where younger, and older people can try on hats and shoes. And a section where 11 wonderful shoes, accompanied by two equally wonderful wellies, are suspended in mid-air. These are the work of the Young Carers Group from East Oxford who clearly enjoyed the making as much as visitors will enjoy the finished work. One of the young artists wrote ‘I am very proud that I was part of the exhibition. It was a great success designing my sweetie shoe’. The shoe in question being lavishly decorated from tip to toe with liquorice all-sorts.

Illustrated here is sharksfineyething made by another young artist and who has used electric blue paper cut to form sharp angles and a judiciously placed eye to create said finny denizen.

Also working with shoes are women who use the Complex Needs Service. As a group they have produced the life of a fictional character as told through shoes.

Suzy Prior’s photographic portraits are of members of the public in their working head-gear: a fireman, a butcher, high sheriff and a policewoman to name a few.

Those attending the Oxford Archaeology Group have selected parts of shoes excavated in the 1970s in the Oxford Castle Barbican, in the modern Westgate area, to illustrate footwear of the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries when a pair would cost the equivalent of £400 a throw. One of the group has made delicate reconstructed coloured drawings of the shoes suggesting the delightful past these shoes had, one now not immediately apparent from the blackened remnants.

The Museum of Oxford Reminiscence Group have drawn on their own hats and shoes to create glimpses of past owners. John Glazier’s wife Lily has lent his Bulldog bowler and Beadle’s hat which he wore to escort Encaenia processions, among other duties and the mortar board he wore when awarded his honorary degree for the services he performed wearing the other two hats.

Hazel Bleasy has contributed an exquisite miniature milliner’s shop — Harriet’s Hats — in memory of her grandmother. Dolls are tiny customers standing amid minute and beautiful hats for all occasions, from celebration to mourning.

The exhibition is a delight. The work of the diverse groups has been skilfully woven together into an engaging coherent whole, in which everyone will find hats, shoes or stories to fascinate, stimulate and perhaps be persuaded to join a group.

The exhibition is at the Gallery in the Town Hall Oxford until June 2, open Monday to Sunday.