Preston City Council were so pleased with the event we staged last year that they invited us back again, so we decided to go bigger and better than before! The cogs have been turning and we’ve come up with what we think are some really exciting plans for this years’ Making a Mark day in Preston on 15th June 2019, marking the start of Preston’s Summer Saturdays season.
This year, our theme is the affect of plastics in our oceans and we will be asking visitors and participants to bring along single-use plastic bottles, containers, bags, bottle tops which our artists will turn into usable items as well as a giant installation which will be a visual treat! Before the event, some of our artists will run some community participation workshops to enable anyone to help make things in advance, to be displayed on the day. Once the event is over, the council are arranging for all the plastics to be taken to the recycling centre – so please, do come along, bring your plastics and please try to stop using single-use plastic items to help stop the pollution of our oceans.
Last year we highlighted the increased use of food banks and invited visitors and participants on the day to donate tins of food, which became a huge installation piece for the event and then all the tins were given to local food banks. We had an amazing response and the feedback we received was that people really enjoyed being able to participate and be part of the event whilst also doing something to benefit others. This year, we hope to get the same support to benefit our planet – please help spread the word.
To join the Oxheys team we have invited artists who we’ve worked with before to give us proposals on how they could work within our theme and budget and they have come up with some more really interesting ideas.
We are finalising our proposal for Arts Council funding now and will be submitting any day. If we are successful, we’ll publish more info with details of who will be taking part very soon. Meanwhile, do mark the date in your diary because it will be a great event, regardless of the outcome.