News: Art group to reimagine Rotherham town centre
A free festival in Rotherham town centre will feature a captivating trail of projection installations. It follows on from last year's popular Museum of The Moon event.
As part of the year-long celebration of the borough becoming the world’s first Children’s Capital of Culture, Rotherham will host a free Winter Festival from Friday 24th to Sunday 26th January 2025.
The government-funded programme, Flux Rotherham, which is boosting involvement in creativity and culture in the borough, has announced a unique collaboration with the renowned theatre company, imitating the dog. Chosen by Children’s Capital of Culture’s Youth Programming Panel, they have a key role in helping programme the year-long festival.
The vision is to imagine a place where nothing is quite as it seems; where the imaginations of young people have transformed the town, giving it an otherworldly twist. This is “Otherham,” a magical town where stone walls might open portals to new worlds, where you can order the weather with your coffee, and where kindness is delivered by fluttering butterflies. It’s both familiar and fantastical, a reimagined Rotherham that invites you to see the town through a new lens.
Flux Rotherham Programme Director Helen Jones said: “Last year over 10,000 people visited Rotherham Minster during the Winter Festival to visit The Museum of The Moon, which was amazing. But what people told us was they wanted a wider winter festival with more activity across the town, which is designed especially for Rotherham.
“This festival responds to that wish, and with imitating the dog and Grimm & Co. on board, plus the incredible imaginations of Rotherham’s children and young people, we hope to create a free, world-class cultural experience right in the heart of our town.“
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Simon Wainwright, co-Artistic Director at imitating the dog, added: ”We can’t wait to create Otherham for Rotherham’s Winter Festival. It’s a project we dreamed up after an inspirational visit to the town centre and Grimm & Co’s wonderful storytelling emporium; a visit which truly sparked our imaginations and formed the idea to let the city’s young people dream up a magical, unpredictable and out-of-step world. Who knows what we’ll end up creating but that’s the most exciting part – what stories could these buildings contain?”
Flux Rotherham has also confirmed that it will take over Gallery Town, an ambitious project driven by local businesses in 2012 to create the largest open-air Art Gallery in the UK.
It mainly focussed on sharing reproductions of art on buildings across the town centre by schoolchildren, students, local artists and internationally renowned masters. In more recent years, Gallery Town has created the large-scale Camellia Sculpture in All Saints' Square with support from Arts Council project funding.
Many of the original artworks are now deteriorating and need a refresh to contribute to the overall regeneration and visitor experience in the town centre.
New artworks are proposed for new sites such as Forge Island, along the riverbank development and around/within the new markets area.
A post from Flux Rotherham said: "We’ll focus on the creation of art locally led by professional high-quality artists- this would involve children and young people and adults in the community.
"The artworks would reflect a broader range of artistic output including words, digital and 3 dimensional. Collectively we’d look at Gallery Town as a curated evolving mix of murals, sculpture, wall based and other playful public artworks."
Flux Rotherham website
Images: imitating the dog
As part of the year-long celebration of the borough becoming the world’s first Children’s Capital of Culture, Rotherham will host a free Winter Festival from Friday 24th to Sunday 26th January 2025.
The government-funded programme, Flux Rotherham, which is boosting involvement in creativity and culture in the borough, has announced a unique collaboration with the renowned theatre company, imitating the dog. Chosen by Children’s Capital of Culture’s Youth Programming Panel, they have a key role in helping programme the year-long festival.
The vision is to imagine a place where nothing is quite as it seems; where the imaginations of young people have transformed the town, giving it an otherworldly twist. This is “Otherham,” a magical town where stone walls might open portals to new worlds, where you can order the weather with your coffee, and where kindness is delivered by fluttering butterflies. It’s both familiar and fantastical, a reimagined Rotherham that invites you to see the town through a new lens.
Flux Rotherham Programme Director Helen Jones said: “Last year over 10,000 people visited Rotherham Minster during the Winter Festival to visit The Museum of The Moon, which was amazing. But what people told us was they wanted a wider winter festival with more activity across the town, which is designed especially for Rotherham.
“This festival responds to that wish, and with imitating the dog and Grimm & Co. on board, plus the incredible imaginations of Rotherham’s children and young people, we hope to create a free, world-class cultural experience right in the heart of our town.“
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Simon Wainwright, co-Artistic Director at imitating the dog, added: ”We can’t wait to create Otherham for Rotherham’s Winter Festival. It’s a project we dreamed up after an inspirational visit to the town centre and Grimm & Co’s wonderful storytelling emporium; a visit which truly sparked our imaginations and formed the idea to let the city’s young people dream up a magical, unpredictable and out-of-step world. Who knows what we’ll end up creating but that’s the most exciting part – what stories could these buildings contain?”
Flux Rotherham has also confirmed that it will take over Gallery Town, an ambitious project driven by local businesses in 2012 to create the largest open-air Art Gallery in the UK.
It mainly focussed on sharing reproductions of art on buildings across the town centre by schoolchildren, students, local artists and internationally renowned masters. In more recent years, Gallery Town has created the large-scale Camellia Sculpture in All Saints' Square with support from Arts Council project funding.
Many of the original artworks are now deteriorating and need a refresh to contribute to the overall regeneration and visitor experience in the town centre.
New artworks are proposed for new sites such as Forge Island, along the riverbank development and around/within the new markets area.
A post from Flux Rotherham said: "We’ll focus on the creation of art locally led by professional high-quality artists- this would involve children and young people and adults in the community.
"The artworks would reflect a broader range of artistic output including words, digital and 3 dimensional. Collectively we’d look at Gallery Town as a curated evolving mix of murals, sculpture, wall based and other playful public artworks."
Flux Rotherham website
Images: imitating the dog
12 comments:
I suppose we should be grateful that they've dropped the awful "Rovrum" name!
The moon event last year was excellent and it sounds like there is some interesting plans afoot.
This project is a replacement of the "Gallery Town" work under the "Otherham" branding. "You’re Not From New York City, You’re From Rov’rum" is one of the themes of the Childrens Capital of Culture and separate to this.
Otherham is the Winter Festival, which sits under the theme that you've described.
Gallery Town sits separately, and has no relation to the festival. This article is poorly written. Super excited to see what they do after the moon last year!
I've read the article more than once and I'm none the wiser as to what is actually happening.
A 'winter festival'. I wonder if they're going to hand out crackers where the prize is a wrap of spice!
I'm the same after reading the Advertiser
Don't lie, you don't even read the Advertiser
You'd be front runner if they awarded one for damp squibs.
But I try to make out the rubbish pictures
Indeed so Watson. A three pipe case.
I think missing the first letter of Rotherham off is a mistake. What if Scun thorpe were to follow suit?
Swan King-on-Sea
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