Wave your own flag at a ‘fun and furious arts installation’ on Thurso beach
A community-based arts installation for families to share their creativity is planned for Thurso beach on February 21 with a special flag waving event.
A project called ‘Fun and Furious’ invites families to share stories with Creativity In Care – a socially engaged arts company working Highland-wide. Artists and members of the Caithness community have helped to express local stories through creative paintings and poems.
“What comes shining through in the Caithness area is a sense of community,” said Ross-shire based director Karrie Marshall. “So even though service issues exist, people wanted to highlight things that help them, such as neighbours, local community groups, being in nature, and the ‘weirdly magical light’ of Caithness.”
The creative and interactive beach installation will consist of flags made by the general public as well as with people at the Ormlie Community Association in Thurso and Centred Scotland for mental health in Wick.
Students from UHI North, West and Hebrides, and other groups are also interested in getting involved, said the organisers. Participants are welcome to create their own flags to bring along. You can use acrylics paints on old cut up bed sheets or fabrics, tied to willow or cane sticks. And you can also pick up Creativity In Care’s acyclic paints and material scraps at the Ormlie Community Centre from Feb 7 or get in touch by emailing: admin@creativityincare.org.
The installation will also include some hand-made dolls to represent people in our communities, plus poetry readings about people’s experiences. An ‘Arts in Nature’ artist will be on hand to create a seaweed blanket for other beach arts to help represent stories of being supported by the community.
You are invited to watch or be part of the beach installation on Friday, February 21 at 11am and again at 2pm. The Creativity In Care team will be there all day, so feel free to come along when suits you. There will be opportunities to share your fun or furious stories or help with the simply-made film scenes.
Like many third sector organisations, Creativity In Care is looking at fundraising possibilities to continue community arts projects. A booklet about the project with images from both Ross-shire and Caithness projects will be made available for donations, or for local advertising.
For more information about the project contact Donna Murray by email on donnamurray@creativityincare.org