In spite of COVID-19, Fun Palaces are flourishing all around the country!
This weekend (3 & 4 October), is the national Fun Palaces weekend of action in the movement’s campaign for cultural democracy, for grassroots grow-your-own culture.
The North of Scotland is fertile soil for Fun Palaces – we’ve always had a tradition of making our own entertainment with our Ceilidh Houses in every community.
So, now Fun Palace seeds are being sown and flowers are blooming:
At Inverness Botanic Gardens, the GROW project will be offering free seed-paper making packs with seeds as well as mini gardening kits, to collect and try out at home.
Over at Inverness Cathedral Cafe, local women’s social enterprise, Libertie, will be making stones and art materials available so that customers can decorate these to contribute to a colourful rock garden.
At Swanston Avenue in Inverness, local artist Sue Fraser and her neighbours have been part of a Fun Palaces project commissioning a community artwork where each neighbour shared their favourite flower and she included these in a felted wallhanging. A digital scrapbook of this project is being shared by Sue for Fun Palaces Weekend.
And for those of us who missed wearing flowers in our hair at the Belladrum Tartan Heart Festival this Summer, this weekend Bella is creating not just one but an assortment of digital Fun Palaces including participative workshops this Saturday!
This idea of making our own entertainment and sharing our talents and skills which was so much a part of our way of life in the North of Scotland is flowering again with Fun Palaces being made from Oban at The Rockfield Centre to Aberdeenshire with family-sized Fun Palaces like Frazey’s Fabulous Fun Palace (where different generations of a family are sharing Crafting and Minecrafting skills) and the Huntly Farmers’ Market Fun Palace with Deveron Arts.
There are Fun Palaces from coast to coast with The Sea Inside Fun Palace at Cromarty Courthouse exhibiting their community artwork on both Saturday and Sunday afternoons.
And at the most Northerly arts centre on the mainland, Lyth Arts Centre are creating a digital Fun Palace called ‘Make a Flower for a Friend’. They will share how to make origami flowers online and then encourage folk to give their flower – or even make a bouquet – and give these to a friend or maybe an elderly neighbour in the community.
For more information about all these Fun Palaces and more or to sign up to make your own Fun Palace go to www.funpalaces.co.uk.
This blog was written by:
