Look out for our super large Art Street posters around Stoke-on-Trent from 22nd September. We have been working to make sure that the Essence head sculptures are still looking great and artist Richard has made a replacement for the one of Christine which went walkies from outside Wetherspoons in the centre of Stoke. Why not book yourself a visit to Stoke during October and enjoy the wonderful Art Street trail of sculptures and banners.
More details about the project and who they represent can be found on the Essences page. Artist Amy Cutler visited Stoke-on-Trent and the Staffordshire Moorlands on the first weekend in September in preparation for her commission Ludchurch Channel. The project combines ideas of individual and communal experience of landscape, and of Lud’s Church itself as a form of ‘channel’ in the landscape and Amy will create a film and a soundpiece based in this mossy chasm. This film-as-public-laboratory will make visible the process of bringing together the human and nonhuman threads of the “green chapel”, as both a private and a public channel; a hidden place for individual ritual, but also a shared landscape at the same time.
You can follow the work as it develops on Amy's own site and through Festival Stoke's Facebook, Twitter and Instagram channels. We're delighted to launch the first Black Life Monologues this week. Skin by Ophelia is a strong, beautiful and moving short monologue and film. There will be four more films in the series. Details about the family of artists involve is on their page and the video is available to view on our Youtube channel.
One of our Festival Echo artists Harry Wakeling is gathering people's thoughts on what they have missed or lost during lockdown and he will shape these into a projection to bring them to life.
We need people from Stoke to complete this very short survey. Thank you! Later in the year as part of the Arts Council England funded #festivalechoes programme, artist Harry Wakeling will be presenting his project ‘Lost Moments’ and he needs your help. Harry Wakeling is a Multidisciplinary Artist with interests in installation art and community engagement. As part of the Festival Echoes programme, Harry intends to create a series of experiments with projection mapping, bringing to life experiences and events that have been lost due to isolation and social distancing around Staffordshire. He has created a survey that he hopes will inform the outcome of his piece; If you are from Staffordshire and have a few minutes to spare, please feel free to share your responses. He’s hoping to hear about exact locations you may have missed in the Staffordshire area. Link to the SURVEY There's a real sense of anticipation at Festival Stoke waiting to see and hear The Mavis Movement perform The Black Life Monologues. Bringing together the talented family members, each gifted and experienced creative in their own rights, to perform, these siblings and cousins will dig within themselves to put forward the truth of Blackness as they see it.
Keep an eye on our Facebook and Instagram pages. The Tiny Folk are busy rehearsing for their performances in Stoke early in October.
The streets were empty; the shops had been shuttered; the car batteries had gone flat. Even Alton Towers was closed. The town of Stoke was deserted. As the streets slowly come to life again the Tiny Folk of Stoke, borrower-style imps, anthropomorphic bugs, and enchanted toys will use the street as their canvas and transform their landscape into works of art. Keep an eye on our social media channels for dates and locations in the town centre of Stoke! By Paperchase Theatre Uncaged Aerial Theatre are bringing an amazing performance of aerial dance and spoken word to the Festival Stoke screens filmed on a secret beach in the north east of England, in August.
One of our Festival Echo commissions supported by Arts Council England. Keep you eye on our Facebook page so you don't miss it! We are excited to announce that the Olympics are coming to Stoke this year! Fully Booked Theatre are bringing Olympics events into your home with their fun characters String and Strong. There will be live activities to join in through Facebook streaming. Part of our innovative Festival Echoes programme thanks to Arts Council England support. The next in the series of the Festival Echoes commissions funded by Arts Council England is Stoke Lockdown Stories by Samantha Jones. Samantha, a recently graduated artist living and working in Stoke-on-Trent was commissioned by Festival Stoke to create artworks in response to Covid-19, working within the government guidelines.
Samantha writes about her Echo commission: “My aim as an artist who doesn't originally come from Stoke is to find how the current covid-19 situation had affected the city and its people. I will also be asking people from the Stoke area to send me their stories of lockdowns. These can be uplifting ones or ones where people have struggled, and from these stories I will pick a select few which I will create illustrations from. These combined with my photography will be created into an online gallery where people can view the images and watch the resulting film.” The ‘Stoke Lockdown Stories’ video and photo gallery can be viewed here We are delighted to announce that in response to the large number of excellent applications we received for the Festival Echoes commission ‘Creating Art in a Different Landscape’ we have taken the decision to increase the number of commissions from the six originally planned to a total of 14. Having started in May with the superb ‘Heroicus Rex’ film by Martin Gooding these will now run right through the year until January 2020. With agreement from Arts Council England we have been able to reallocate the funding ring-fenced for the Mysterious Moth event (postponed from 16th May) and add it to the immediately available Emergency Response Fund awarded for the Festival Echoes programme. The range and quality of the artists’ proposed projects makes for an exciting and varied programme,which will have broad appeal. There’ll be aerial acrobatics and immersive soundscapes, contemporary and classical dance, and projections. There’ll be music and words rooted in the here and now, and mystical imaginations taking you on a journey. They’’ll be outdoors by the sea and then on wild moorland, but also in the artist’s front room. Several will be quirky, others reflective or purposefully playful with the chance to join in at home. Festival Echoes will be available to view and listen to right through summer into winter. Keep your eye out on our social media channels and website for more information. In the longer term our plan is to rework Mysterious Moth into an even more extraordinary interactive event for late 2021, building on the creative ideas and foundations already in place and working with existing and new artists - we’ll plan to secure new funding next year to make that happen. Festival Echoes is funded by Arts Council England #letscreate #ACEfunded |
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