CELEBRATING ARTS AND CULTURE

Hull is one of the Northern UK’s fastest growing cultural hubs. The city has attracted people from all over by hosting festivals, featuring artists of all disciplines, and putting on amazing events. Freedom Festival is an award-winning programme of events throughout the year that opens up experiences “from epic to intimate” and this fitting description certainly conveys how we felt about our involvement in March 2022.

FOX DEN WORKSHOPS

We love creating with communities in person. To make an inspiring environment for such activates, Freedom Festival scouted out locations and commissioned us to design a bespoke Fire Fox Mask that the public could build in workshops across the city. We had so much fun collaborating with their team and Hull City Council by converting an empty high street shop into a woodland-themed workshop using reclaimed card as building materials.

OVER 1,000 FREEDOM FOXES

Through this project, we helped to reduce barriers to access, increased local participation and improved the residents feeling of ownership of the festival. By making a mask with their own hands and wearing it amongst the art and installations, they themselves became an integrated, collective part of the creativity around them. The result was over 1,000 participants who made and wore masks while attending. Seeing masses of fox ears pointing up toward the night sky was incredible to behold and inspiring for future events. 

THE AWAKENING

In collaboration with Scrap Store Hull, Ferens Art Gallery and HCAL Museums, we facilitated Fox Den workshop pop-ups throughout Hull during the festival weekend and it was just awesome to see the families preparing their Fire Fox Masks for The Awakening. It was an unforgettable experience to see pointy-eared participants strolling through The Fire Garden, stopping at the Rose Bowl to gaze as Fire Foxes into the Borealis, which was an immersive installation by Dan Archer that brought the experience of the Northern Lights to the city.

LOOKING TO THE FUTURE

We'd like to thank everyone involved in this unforgettable event and we'll definitely take everything we learned from this experience and explore new collaborative possibilities. If you have an event or festival that you think we could help with, please do get in touch and we look forward to hearing your ideas. Have an amazing festival season everyone!