Festival of the Lea

Engagement

Artists Cath Carver of Colour Your City and Christina Kalinowski of Doodle Designs were invited by Hinterlands Enfield – an artist residency programme from the Canal & River Trust – to work with secondary school students from years 7-9 at Aylward Academy. We explored colour and place, conducting a site visit then a workshop at the school where the young people made their own designs for the canal towpath.

As part of the project the young people visited the canal with the artists as part of the Hinterlands project and in preparation for July's Festival of the Lea. During this visit the participants had a Colour Encounter along the canal, discussing colour connections and using the Place Diagram from Project for Public Spaces to understand what makes a Great Place. They then explored the local environment by walking along the canal and discussing the landscape with the artists, thinking about how it made them feel, what colours are present and what creative interventions could be made. Following this they headed into BLOQS for a collaging activity, using photographs of the canal and adjacent locations combined with colour acetate sheets to improve the places. Colour and vision was also playfully investigated using glasses and paddles.

Following this, the artists visited the school to carry on the session, with pupils annotating images with sketch designs, and then developing their ideas of what they’d like to see along the canal through model making or collage. Final designs included a safe space to rest and read, gardens for pollinators, and a sensory wall. The pupils also gave feedback on the festival, helping to shape the final Colour Your Canal activation which will be taking place during the Festival of the Lea.

RESOURCES

A zine and toolkit was created and distributed to local schools and youth organisations, as a creative invitation to learn more about colour and place, and then get involved in the festival activation.

ACTIVATION