We'd like to thank our wonderful warm welcoming hosts at NMMC, who commissioned us to create the show - and our enthusiastic audiences, many of whom joined in with the chorus finale. The original songs from the show are now available to stream on Soundcloud: links below! 

Supported by Arts Council England, FEAST, Isles of Scilly Steamship Community Fund & Innes Architects and working with Five Islands Academy, St Mary’s Library, Scilly Chaplaincy, Islands’ Partnership, Phoenix Studios, St Mary’s Brownies, and a host of other community members and organisations, ARTiculate brought a much-needed two weeks of community and schools arts & creative activity to the Islands during the most challenging point of the year, shining a light on the darkest days and bringing everyone together in a shared celebration of their community and heritage. A culmination of the wonderful schools Project week with a schools sharing at Carn Gwavas on February 14th was followed by a fantastic illuminated community celebration on St Mary’s on February 22nd, 2020, which brought together hundreds of wonderful local creations, large and small, some of them unique wearable ships, lighthouses, and buoys, for a very special procession through the streets of Hugh Town, and culminating in a fabulous and unforgettable cake finale at the Scillonian Club! More on our Island Light Festivals here.

As well as providing BikeLights 2019 with its theme, FIRE & STEAM also brought BikeLights to Bodmin for the first time, linking the towns through their unique railway heritage and involving a whole host of partners in this spectacular bicycle based processive event with an impressive steam finale. 

Forming part of the Lanterns and Lights festivities, the Packet Ship took pride of place especially during the Make & Take workshops, where children were able to make their own mini ships to take home. 

Core ARTiculate artists Laura Frances Martin, Reg Payn and Imogen Bone worked with members of the community over a long weekend in mid-May, inspired by stories the team had researched of amazing wrecks & rescues of the many ships that have foundered on the dangerous rocks off the Islands, and the interesting cargoes that have variously washed ashore - including cows, high class millinery, and more! Locals aged from 4 to 70 worked with the team to design and create beautiful imagery that visually retold those stories, using heat transfer dye methods to transfer their designs on to silk fabric. The resulting fabric banners were crafted into circular lanterns and used to retell these fascinating stories during a special public sharing event at the Chaplaincy Pavilion. 

Building up to a series of massive, multi-site Mayflower400 celebrations in 2020, a partnership of Plymouth based cultural and civic bodies - including RIO, the commissioning organisation for Illuminate’s light and projection practitioners - have been working to make this exciting commemoration happen year on year since 2017. The postponed final Illuminate festival in Plymouth will now be taking place in late 2021; you can read more at illuminate-festival.co.uk 

Two of the three large ships were created in Bodmin College’s art department by Reg Payn working with KS3 students, and one created by Reg and Caroline in Caroline’s Port Isaac studio. The larger lanterns were also shown again in 2016 and 2017‘s Bodmin Lights Up! festive events.

Themed on Marvellous Machines, Laura created a giant travelling ‘Glamophone’ complete with Muse, in a highly lit costume inspired by the Spirit of Ecstasy, and Reg bathed in glory in an illuminated Flying Bathtub; both appeared in the magical illuminated procession through the town on October 15th and at the end parade. 

Over two hundred children and their families came to the festival workshop marquee in the Harbour, creating silver fish and jellyfish from recycled materials and helping decorate two giant mussel shells, which were worn for the two lovely mini-parades by some very game parents! 

Big thanks to Lesley Walker of Boscastle Arts for her hard work in organising the extra cultural activities, and to FEAST Cornwall and Boscastle Festival Committee for supporting.

The towns of Alano Di Piave and Qero-Vas on the edge of the Dolomites played host to this major festival, entitled 'Teatro di Pace' ('Theatre of Peace'), in July 2015, and ARTiculate were approached more than a year in advance by internationally renowned puppeteer Paolo Rech to enhance and collaborate on this exciting festival, celebrating the conection of the two towns with the opening of a new bridge over the river gorge. The area is steeped in history and the river itself played a key part in the creation of the City of Venice, as the key conduit by which timber was brought to the city to use in the construction of many of its historic buildings.

Eden’s Head of Communications David Rowe approached Reg to create the sculpture after conversations with Jon Cleave of the Fishermen’s Friends, who were topping the bill at the 2015 event. As the Eden Project is based in Cornwall, their World Pasty Championships celebrate the traditional Cornish pasty recipe as well as some more unusual varieties. From the Americas to Australia, pasties derived from recipes passed down by Cornish emigrants over centuries are eaten and enjoyed by many millions of people. 

 The Gurt Pasty took pride of place over the main stage for this, the fourth year of the championships, and has done so every year since then!

Artists and singing leaders devised a programme of lantern making events, stained glass workshops and singing sessions that took place in local primary schools and Bodmin College, as well as a drop-in day for the local community, after consultation with the council, schools and community groups involved. Classes in each primary school - Robartes, Berrycoombe, St Mary’s, The Beacon Infants and St Petroc's - made small coloured pyramid lanterns for the parade, and were also invited to take part in a number of singing assemblies. Classes from the infant schools also made more than 100 festive ‘stained glass’ scenes, which adorned the upper windows of the Shire Hall during the event. Lyrics were handed out to the public, enabling a massed choir to sing three carols together at the end of the night. Other groups that took part included Kickback Street Dance Group, Bodmin College Art students, members of Bodmin Town Band, Bodmin College Jazz Band, and members of Youth Music & Cymaz groups Exchanging Notes programme, which is about providing opportunities for young people in challenging circumstances. 

 Artists included Caroline Cleave, Reg Payn, Karen Bessel, Clare Summerson, Emma Mansfield and Terry Mansfield, along with music leaders Giles Wooley, Kyle McGill and Ben Vincent. The event and workshops were funded by Bodmin Town Council, FEAST and Cornwall Community Foundation, with sponsorship from Proper Cornish, Barnecutts and the Property Shop; support in kind came from Bodmin College via marketing, stewarding, musical direction and lighting & PA equipment. The event was a success. Bodmin’s Mayor said: “The biggest turn out we’ve ever had.” Other quotes from the workshops and event included: “Lots of messy fun and enjoyed working with willow. Great craft level for parents to do with children, thanks a lot!” “Fantastic session, very well organized and enjoyable, it’s lovely to see community events and so many people contributing to the success of the event, thank you” “Thank you so much, the boys really loved it, you are all fantastic! Looking forward to next week” Sarah, Monty and Beau “Thank you for a fab start to the festive season!”

This year’s theme was ‘BIRDS’, linking in with the Seabird Recovery Project and linking up with inspirational Island Artists Imogen Bone and Oriel Hicks, who constructed a giant rat and phoenix. Islanders turned out in great number for all the workshops that were held throughout the week, amid fluttering flags and billowing bunting, on St Mary’s… community lantern making, storytelling, illustration, singing, and poetry, whilst at the same time the team began the task of having 5 Giant bird lanterns ready for the weekend. A hair-raising boat trip was needed for the ‘Extreme Shadow Puppetry’ on St Agnes (hosted by Nikki Anderson of the Turks Head) where local children devised, made and performed an amazing shadow play recounting a strange tale of guinea pigs, pirates, mermaids and shipwreck.. and made some mini lanterns too, all in the space of 3 hours! (Nikki’s curry was Extremely tasty too!) Jon and Emma organised ‘Mares' Tales and Mackerel Scales’ at the Bishop and Wolf.. an ‘open mic’ evening of bawdy ballads, saucy shanties, anarchic anecdote, local lore and much much more; plus an afternoon of tea and songs with the local elders at the ‘Memory Café’ plus writing and rehearsing the ‘Gully Song’ during storyboarding sessions with local children plus rehearsing songs with Island singers. The stormy weather came and went during the week and blessed us with a perfect day for the GRAND SPECTACULARI on Saturday night. Five massive birds pursued the gigantic red-eyed rat through the streets of Hugh Town, accompanied vocally by Emma, Jon and a choir of local singers, harried by a host of candlelit Puffins and swooping seabirds who led all to a fantastic firework finale at Town Beach. This year’s ‘Island Light Festival’ poster was designed and produced by Holly Summerson. The Festival was co-ordinated on Scilly by Joel Williams and generously supported by the Council of the Isles of Scilly, RSPB/Seabird Recovery Project, AONB and FEAST.

 We loved being part of the festival and were delighted with the response we received and hugely grateful for the assistance we received too - especially to the King Harry Ferry and to each of our workshop partners.

This hugely successful event led to ideas for future events, with plans to develop the idea and run it again in the future.

Suspended above the main stage in the largest marquee on site, the mackerel attracted great interest at the Rock Oyster Festival - and has since made guest appearances at many other events in and around North Cornwall!

Created in Caroline Cleave’s Port Isaac garden and studio, the giant sea creature was jointly designed and created by a number of people over the course of a week, and finished and transported to Porthcothan in time for the celebratory event. This community sing on the beach at Porthcothan was the finale for the Darke Visions festival, celebrating the life and works of late Cornish playwright Nick Darke. The evening included community, school and male voice choirs and finished with joint singing of The Lobster Song by Nick Darke and Jim Carey - and the burning of the beast!