During February, Touchstones Rochdale welcomed visitors through its doors to take part in a range of free creative activities as part of its series of ‘Family Fun Days’ – an ongoing programme held in school holidays designed to connect with communities and encourage them to engage with local cultural life.
To celebrate Touchstones’ newest exhibition, A Tall Order!, the recent Family Fun Day activities were inspired by the theme of activism, a concept explored within the pieces shown in the gallery spaces.
A Tall Order! exhibition celebrates the previous civic gallery in the North West – Rochdale Art Gallery – that pioneered the function and purpose of a ‘local’ art gallery. It presents a unique look back in time to the 1980s, highlighting artwork that was displayed in the gallery during this time.
The free drop-in session included artistic activities for the whole family to enjoy – screen printing facilitated by Erica Matthews, adventure walks, story creation time, to name just a few.
Jennifer Vickers, Creative Learning Manager at Touchstones said: “At Touchstones, it’s important we create an inclusive environment where families from our local community can come together to celebrate our exhibitions in a fun and interactive way. Our newest A Tall Order! exhibition has such a powerful message, alongside highlighting an important decade in history, we want to ensure it resonates with future generations.
“The themes displayed in the exhibition spaces touch on major social and political events of the 1980s and we’re certainly not expecting the young people attending these sessions to leave with a new perspective from what they’ve seen and explored. But rather we want to open the conversation that allows us to learn and embrace each other’s differences, much like those different viewpoints of the same decade through the artwork in the gallery spaces.
“We’re firm believers that creativity and art are a way to bring this to the forefront and understand our history through a communal space.
“We were delighted with the success of the February workshop and we can’t wait to welcome everyone in the Easter half term.”
The next ‘Family Fun Day’ event will take place during the Easter holidays, Friday 14th April.
Local artists Andee Collard and Rebecca Harrington – known collectively as Bolton Contemporary – will be leading one creative session, inspired by the work of Lubna Chowdhary which is currently displayed in Gallery 3 as part of A Tall Order! With artist Rosalyne Norford, you can also have a go at creating your own piece of poetry about your family, celebrate our differences with fun creative games and draw your own work inspired by A Tall Order! The Family Fun Day is free of charge with no need to book prior. Drop-in times for the event is between 11am-2pm – messy clothes recommended!
Find out more details about the next Family Fun Day at Touchstones Rochdale here: https://www.yourtrustrochdale.
