Growing Voices While working as project leader for Carlisle Eden Mind, I had the opportunity to combine my arts practice with my social sector work, co-creating Growing Voices — a project for Time to Change with a group of diverse individuals with lived experience of mental illness. I recruited a steering group of volunteers with lived experience through media work to promote the project. We then commissioned local artist Ben Gates to create a life-sized tree sculpture that could easily be dismantled and reconstructed by the team, this was done in close consultation with the steering group. This tree was to be the focus of our space and an eye-catching way to encourage the public to talk to us.
We developed a package of art activities themed around a picnic under our tree, commissioning local community artist Celia Burbush to create activities and decor with the volunteer group. I also toured around the other Local Mind Associations in Cumbria assisting people who felt unable to talk to the public in person to share their stories by recording them. These stories were stored on MP3 players concealed in apples on the tree. Visitors could listen to them through headphones, creating a library of personal experiences to access. Our event volunteers trained with Time to Change support to become ‘conversation starters’ ready to engage the public with creative activities and free tea and start conversations about mental health, sharing their own personal experiences. We bought a large gazebo and designed the cover for it as a group, this was so that we could attend all kinds of events and locations around Cumbria in all weathers!
We toured the Growing Voices project around events, markets, libraries, and town and city centers in Cumbria for two years, the project was so successful that it was granted additional funding from Time to Change to extend it. The former CEO of Carlisle Eden Mind described the project as having ‘transformed attitudes towards mental health in Cumbria’. I know it was transformative for many of our volunteers, some of whom went on to continue to raise awareness of mental health stigma through campaign groups and seminars.
Solfest I currently coordinate site art for the Solfest festival, having previously provided décor for venues at the festival I was invited by the festival management team to take on the role in 2017. Each year I commission a number of artists and manage a team of around 20 volunteers to design, create and install arts around the festival site. This ranges from scrap sculptures and installations to constructing false fronts and entranceways to venues and live art graffiti walls. I manage budgets, risk assessments, materials and infrastructure, and liaise closely with the build team, venue managers, and festival management to coordinate the build.
Over the years our ambitions for site art at Solfest and our budget has grown to allow us to attract artists from all over the UK and beyond to share their skills and passion for creation with us. I have always sought to ensure the festival gets value for money and the artists feel nurtured and appreciated and this has paid off in terms of what we have been able to achieve and build on year by year. There is nothing quite like the feeling you get watching festival goers coming onto the site when the gates open and encountering the art. This year I was so busy with finishing touches I couldn’t get out to take photographs of everything until after the gates opened and when I did every time I wanted to take a pho I had to wait for folks to photograph themselves in front of it first!
I am a strong promoter of festival arts, the décor, installations, and all the quirky creative things you encounter when exploring a festival site are what make it that otherworldly experience where you have permission not to be your usual workaday self. A festival without art is just a bunch of tents and portaloos, after all, I am a strong believer in the importance of visual arts in transporting us from the everyday world, and where better to do that than at a music festival?
A recent testimonial from Leah and Tom (Northern Mural Co — Leeds):
"We absolutely loved working on the art crew at Solfest! We managed to meet other like-minded creatives and by the end of the week spent together, we felt like one big family, who we continued to stay in touch and network with following the festival too. Zoe and the rest of the crew were really accommodating and helped to bring our ideas to life. Seeing the festival-goers enjoying and surrounded by the artwork we produced was the best feeling in the world!"
Torchlight 
My most recent project to date having returned to community arts, a large processional puppet for Kendal Torchlight Carnival 2022. The brief was for a ‘Scrap Dragon’ made from repurposed waste materials. The event is due to take place on the 23rd and 24th of September!
I love using recycled materials to create art and much of my personal and festival art production focuses on using materials that would otherwise go to waste. When I ran the ‘Tribe of Tat’ children’s area for festivals many years ago, we used to collect the things left behind by festival goers to use to make things at the next festival. One of the things that got left behind the most were camping mats. I love working with their material as you can get some really amazing effects when sculpting with it.
So I decided that the head of the dragon would be sculpted using camping mats as its primary material, underneath is a withy and split cane armature to keep it light, yet rigid. This is still very much a work in progress, but there will be more photos to come!
