Wild in Art has today announced the names of the artists and sponsors involved in the Walking with The Snowman™ art trail, which comes to MediaCityUK from Thursday 22 November until Sunday 6 January.
The festive trail celebrates the 40th anniversary of Raymond Briggs’ heart-warming picture book The Snowman, and will feature twelve giant Snowman sculptures themed around the song The Twelve Days of Christmas. Each sculpture will be designed and decorated by one of twelve talented artists, all of whom painted a Bee for this year’s Bee in the City event.
Artists have started to bring their sculptures to life this week. Many of the artists will be painting in a ground floor retail unit at the Lowry Outlet, where shoppers will be able to catch a glimpse of them at work through special cut-outs in the shop window display.
Community artist Jenny Leonard, who specialises in murals and site-specific public art, will create Six Geese a-Laying; Salford-born sisters Laura-Kate and Lizzie Rose Chapman will create Seven Swans a-Swimming and Nine Ladies Dancing respectively; and mural artist Donna Newman will paint Eight Maids a-Milking. Hammo, an illustrator and mural painter from Manchester, will paint a sculpture inspired by Ten Lords a-Leaping.
Artist Lois Cordelia painted her Eleven Pipers Piping sculpture at an event for sponsors in October. Her beautiful sculpture is covered in depictions of twelve musicians playing different pipe instruments from all over the world. The final sculpture on the trail is Twelve Drummers Drumming by animator and illustrator Jessica Perrin.
Corporate sponsors for Walking with The Snowman are ISG, N Brown, Print Search, Salford University, Seddon, sixt rent a car, Social 7, The Lowry Outlet Makers Market and Visit Salford, who are each sponsoring a sculpture. The trail’s Presenting Partners are the Lowry Outlet and MediaCityUK.
Walking with The Snowman is presented by Wild in Art, organisers of the Bee in the City art trail which captured the hearts of Manchester’s residents and visitors this summer, and is a collaboration with Penguin Ventures, part of publisher Penguin Random House UK.
The twelve giant sculptures will go under the hammer in an online charity auction in early December to raise money for BBC Children in Need. Bidders will be able to buy a Snowman sculpture as a gift before Christmas and visit it at MediaCityUK before the trail closes in January. At the end of the event sculptures will make their way to their forever homes with successful bidders.
An inspiring learning programme supported by Salford City Council is giving local school pupils the chance to take part in the event and decorate their own smaller 1-metre-tall Snowman sculptures. These will be displayed inside cultural and leisure venues around MediaCityUK to form part of the magical trail. The medium-sized sculptures painted by children and young people will fly onto the trail in early December and stay until 13 January 2019, before being returned to the schools that created them as a lasting legacy.
