Festival Makers
A unique audience and professional development scheme for talented emerging and mid-career designer-makers to work with young people and families in North Hampshire to create public artworks for Basingstoke's World Party in the Park.

The Festival Makers Awards scheme provides selected makers/artists each with a £4,500 bursary, an artist's residency in a North Hampshire school, considerable in-kind support, and the opportunity to create an artwork inspired by one or more world cultures.

The scheme aims to encourage makers to explore new approaches to their practice and to create innovative, large-scale public artworks. The final artworks could include installation, performance, sound and other innovative and experimental work as well as traditional craft media, and could be temporary or ephemeral in nature.

The Making is partnered in this project by Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design. The programme is supported by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.

Four artists (see below) have so far received awards and successfully completed their commissions. A further two awards of £4,500 will be awarded for work in 2012. The deadline for applications is 31 October 2011.

For further details and how to apply, see Festival Makers - Artists's Brief (pdf)

Making it Big Symposium (16 November 2010)
Download symposium review (pdf)
Speakers' biographies (pdf)

The 2011 Award Winners

Jo Coles
Sculptor, Jo Coles, has spent much of her career as a 'community artist' making pieces for large-scale outdoor events. For some years she has been collecting objects, both natural and man-made, found on woodland and urban walks. These objects which can be strange, beautiful or even quite ordinary, are a constant inspiration to her. Using this inspiration, as well as the found objects themselves, she constructs figures and miniature installations.

Having returned from six months in Poland, Jo used her experiences there and her love of Polish folk art as a starting point for her festival design. She made a spectacular, large-scale Polish lady (a 'PolskaPani') full of secret diaramas. She also worked with children at Kings Furlong school, Basingstoke to further develop the design and to create for the Polska Pani a clutch of animated chickens. Having delighted everyone at the World Party in the park, the Polska Pani is now proudly displayed at Kings Furlong school. Also see the photo-documentation of the creation of the Lady (6.64 MB pdf) and Jo's report.

Download the article (pdf) in the Basingstoke Gazette about Jo's work. Copyright the Gazette Newspapers. Reproduced with permission.

Ian Kirkpatrick
Inspired by the stories carried by Classical Greek vases and Wedgewood plates, Southampton-based Canadian artist Ian Kirkpatrick uses modern-day 'ceramics', such as cardboard boxes and paper plates, as canvases for his striking artwork that tells new histories. www.iankirkpatrick.ca

For Festival Makers, Ian worked with Andover College students to shed light on how globalisation (trade, migration and expansion) has shaped their cultural experiences as they tell their own stories visually on modern containers. Ian also used this information to create a major piece of his own - a giant wine-box. For more details see our interview with Ian for Maker of the Month, the press release (pdf) on his work and and Ian's report and images of the work.

Rosanna Martin
The actions and processes involved in the making of ceramics inspire Rosanna Martin's practice. In her Cornish studio, Rosanna makes series of hand-thrown porcelain cylindrical vessels on the wheel, exploring how, through different mark making, parts of the process can become an integral element of the decorative quality of a piece.

Rosanna worked with an entire junior school in Basingstoke to create a celebratory and colourful display of medals made from ceramic and textiles. The medals were enriched with stories and portraits of the children, celebrating their individuality. The children then made ribbons for the medals and wore them in a spectacular Children's Parade that launched the World Party in the park. To learn more about Rosanna and her work see our interview with Rosanna for Maker of the Month, and Rosanna's report on the project and images of the children at work.

Nick Sayers
Brighton-based graphic designer and maker, Nick Sayers, creates spherical sculptures, shelters and lighting from recycled materials. His work explores the beauty of mathematical geometry and the creative reuse of waste. www.nicksayers.com

Nick worked with Farnborough school-children to build a spherical "World of Cultures" sculpture. This was made from an interconnected lattice of the children's silhouettes, and serves both as a sculpture and rollable play structure. It was displayed at the World Party in the park and is now housed at Cherrywood Primary school with the children that inspired it. See the press release and Nick's report.