This spring, National Trust is running an exciting enterprise: Blossom Festival.
The eco-art festival will be celebrated up and down the country over the next two months, with 19 properties involved, including Bourne Mill in Colchester. Bourne Mill staff will be working in collaboration with two Colchester based artists to run free art workshops in community groups around the city.
Blossom Festival aims to engage local communities with nature and the blooming signs of spring around them.
The art workshops, run by Lisa Temple-Cox and Nicola Burrell, will be focused on nature, with the theme: Paper Nature – Celebrating Nature in the City.
These free workshops will focus on this theme, with participants using eco-friendly art materials to explore nature in art.
The artists will run various creative activities, including origami flowers, cyanotype sun prints and floral collage.
Sally James, Blossom project leader at Bourne Mill, expressed her excitement for the upcoming project and said: “I want to emphasise the positive impact nature can have on our health and mental wellbeing.”
She went on to explain that through the Blossom Festival, the team at Bourne Mill aim to make nature ‘accessible to all’ and create a ‘really positive change’.
Through this creative programme, National Trust hopes to build bridges in the community, choosing to focus on underrepresented community groups.
The festival began in March and has already brought workshops to Community 360 Hub and the Colchester Chinese Association.
Other local groups which will soon be involved include RAMA (Refugee Asylum Seeker Migrant Action Colchester) and the Bangladeshi Women’s association.
For James, the hope is that the workshops will ‘help to build great relationships with the local community and Bourne Mill.’
The festival runs throughout March to May, centred around Blossom Week, which begins on the 24 April.
During this week a workshop will be held at Bourne Mill, open to all in the Colchester area.
Bourne Mill is situated only 1 mile south of the city centre, yet seems a tranquil, natural haven. It is only open for a few, lucky days of the year, including the Blossom workshop.
The Blossom Festival is an opportunity for our community, accessible to all.
Through free, creative workshops, it aims to help locals connect with the nature around us, as spring begins to blossom.
To find out more about the Blossom Festival and its opportunities visit www.nationaltrust.org.uk.
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