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FREEDOM was an artistic collaboration that involved four partners in different countries (UK, Germany, Bulgaria and Romania). Led by ArtReach the other partners were Haus Drei, Hamburg, Germany and the Fabric Association, Bulgaria with delivery support also from Fondacion OBOS in Bucharest.
Through co-curation and collaborative delivery between April 2015 and August 2016 the partners shared innovative artistic practice to create three multi art form ingredients that celebrated and explored values of freedom - a Night Time Lit Carnival performance, a Freedom Wall installation programme (online and physical) and a series of art installations (The Plinth Programme) presented on a temporary basis as part of outdoor festival events – all for delivery in the UK, Germany and Bulgaria, under the umbrella of the Night of Festivals project.
The results included:
1. Creation of the Night Time Lit Carnival: An exceptional 40 minute processional performance followed by a site specific finale show. The Carnival involved performers from Mandinga Arts and Sabar Sounds (UK), Stelzen Art and Oakleaf Creativity (Germany) and musicians from FabriC (Bulgaria) with many individual contributions as Director, composer, choreographer from artists in each country.
2. Commissioning of 6 different artists to create live Freedom Wall work in the UK, Germany and Bulgaria, with an additional 47 artists exhibiting digital work on the Freedom Wall web site.
3. Commissioning of four artists to create work for the Plinth Programme – Richard Layzell from the UK, Georgi Balabanov from Bulgaria, Lea Razovsky from Romania and Petra Kilian from Germany. In addition curators were contracted from Bulgaria and Romania to support the commissioning process.
There were major presentations to show all three strands of work in Leicester (UK) in October 2015, and London (UK) in August 2016, in Gabrovo (Bulgaria) in May 2016 as part of the Gabrovo Carnival celebrations, and in Hamburg (Germany) in July 2016 as part of the Hamburg Altonale and STAMP Festival.
Overall the activity reached live audiences of 265,000 plus and stimulated engagement from many thousands more through live participation and on line activity. Up to 50 local community participants took part in each city as performers within the Night Time Carnival with 2,600 people participating in additional participatory Freedom Wall creation across the programme.
Watch the Full 360* degree video of Night of Festivals London here.
See more information from Haus-Drei here and Fabrikata here.
