The Magic Carpets Project is about providing opportunities for emerging curators working with local and visiting international artists. For the Second Year of this Creative Europe programme, Folkestone Fringe invited artists Ana Dana Beroš, put forward by LAB 852, & Patrick Hubmann, put forward by Ideias Emergentes, to work with Urban Room Folkestone to look at the past, present, and future of the area around this building. The MagiC Carpet artists joined us for a 10-day Research and Development stay at the beginning of April, where they explored the streets either side of the Tram Road Spur line in East Folkestone and Harbour Wards and met the different communities that live there.
The ambition was to invite residents in the area onto a programme of 10-weekend workshops, to encourage those taking part to look at the local environment more closely and discuss ideas about how the place could work differently. The programme covered areas such as, model making; architectural drawing for beginners; town planning practicalities, whilst walking through and talking about the immediate neighbourhoods surrounding Urban Room Folkestone.
Ana and Patrick returned in June to work with local artists to produce new artworks.
Travelling Local Artist Year 2 / Residency Location >> Lab 852, Zagreb, Croatia . Read more about >> Gemma Riggs
To conclude, Folkestone Fringe are and have been super proud to represent the UK in this platform. This stands to be particularly important in times of current political uncertainty here in the UK as well relevant to Folkestone being a town that is the closest to mainland Europe in the UK; as the purpose of the Magic Carpets platform requires those working in their homes/visiting to reach out past the Brexit borders and engage in an international creative process… truly highlighting in the words of Patrick Hubmann himself, ‘the beauty of collaboration’.
All of our artists, both those travelling and those working to what is their local demographic, have created strong links with the community that the progression of their ideas have been inspired from the people- it is their responsibility to work with the specific organisation in thinking of methods circulating how to engage with their audience. What this platform insists is both challenging, yet once completed, realised as totally unique opportunity, as we are collectively developing & unifying the curators, artists and audiences simultaneously. The practitioners worked with numerous collaborators, including other intervening artists/associates/foundations. Take a look at the full programme which you can find from the Festival of Looking homepage.
The platform itself and the projects themselves do indeed truly coordinate people with place & time, encompassing the history of the past, creating action in the present, which subsequently provides work, progression & legacies that can be archived and used for the future across a developing European map.
