In October 2020 we reopened our Maker World space in Huddersfield’s Piazza shopping centre and launched Our Biennale! This first event was a weekend of drop-in workshops as part of The Big Draw – the world’s largest drawing festival. Under the theme ‘The Big Green Draw: A Climate of Change’, we invited families into a story-telling experience in which we imagined a new Huddersfield town. Children and young people joined illustrators Ruth Dyer and Harriet Lawson to design new buildings, grow new plants, decide what the shops were selling, come up with inventions and imagine who might live in (or be banished from!) our town. It was all geared towards making our town a wilder, kinder, greener and cleaner place.
All the ideas were added to a map of Huddersfield, which had been a piece of artwork created for the Heart Your Town campaign by Kirklees Council. The map was place in the Maker World window and as more ideas were created and added by children at the Big Draw event, it grew into a truly collaborative masterpiece of town planning.
Everyone attending the event was delighted to be able to get together to be creative (albeit in a socially distanced and Covid-safe way) and the enthusiasm of the children and young people was truly wonderful. They especially loved seeing their part of the map going up in the window for everyone to see.
Whilst it is not currently possible to open Maker World for drop in sessions at the moment due to tier 3 guidelines, we know how much the Our Biennale Big Draw event was appreciated and as soon as we are able, we will be opening our doors again for Covid-safe creative fun for children, young people and their families.
Our Biennale Director, Chloe Williams said, “Children and parents were so delighted to be in Maker World. The children had so many great ideas and absolutely loved having the artists put their drawings into the big map in Maker Worlds’ windows. Despite the social distancing in place there was a wonderful atmosphere of cooperation and of joint creative endeavour.
We had no idea, given the pandemic, how many families would want to attend our event but we were full all day, both days! A clear indication that children and families are hungry for creative opportunities. We hope we can offer many more fun, friendly and creative opportunities at Maker World in 2021.”
