Community Art Workshops

People shared stories, ideas and posed for photos that they felt showed their work.

It's so relaxing, I feel much better now.

The collage idea came from students at Robert Smyth Academy, it represents new jobs and work laying on the foundations of old jobs and work.

The printing on the background allows everyone and anyone to make their mark on the art in an accessible way.

The heart of our ACE funded Community Curators in Market Town Museums project is a creative response created with the community. To represent work in Harborough in 2024 we decided to produce a mural of people at work. Amy Nicholson from HandMade Theatre Company was commissioned to lead the project and ran a series of workshops to consult with and produce our mural in June and July 2024.

We started off by exploring the town and talking to as many people as possible about what they did and what jobs were important in Harborough.

We also ran bespoke workshops at Robert Smyth Academy, where students produced concept designs, collages and shared their ideas and thoughts about the world of work in a lively and thought provoking session.

This was followed up with painting sessions in July. Having been inspired by all the ideas and suggestions of local people, Amy conceived the idea of a collage of picture frames, which allows the mural to be split into 6 parts and come together as a whole seamlessly. Each sixth will have the backgrounds collaged and painted by people in workshops, before she paints the people from the photographs taken. The idea of collages came from Robert Smyth students and the picture frames are all pre-loved, reducing the use of new materials.

Our painting workshops were attended by a diverse range of people, what united everyone was the feeling of relaxation taking part gave them. ‘It’s so relaxing, I feel much better now,’ was a comment we heard a lot. People collaged, painted and printed with a whole host of work related objects from corks to lettuces! Robert Smyth Academy students were involved again, with students contributing enthusiastically to the painting and collaging.

In the course of our workshops we engaged with over 200 people, heard from people from all walks of life and loved seeing people get excited about art. Our artist, Amy will be finishing the mural for display on 8th October at Harborough Museum.

To find out more please contact helen.murray@leics.gov.uk