Part of the festivals programme in Worcester included a festival aimed at 18-30 year olds (The Rising) this week long festival included a programming strand around tattooing (Rise:ink). The subject matter was chosen by our young people's working group. This part of the festival was hugely successful; we celebrated tattooing, we involved communities, we worked with creatives in the city who had found that traditional arts and culture was not for them, we delved into history and explored tattooing's social origins from an academic stand point. It wasn't a tattoo convention, it was a celebration of a sub culture. A culture that is now worth £663 million to the UK economy each year - 1 in 3 people in the UK have a tattoo.
It was fascinating and new and different, and the audience we engaged with in Worcester felt excited to have something for them. I've been pondering over the last few months how we can take this idea of a touring event/exhibition further; I'm 100% sure that the idea and success wasn't unique to Worcester (although the content was and would be going forward specific to the place we would be working in).
I'm excited to see if we can develop something tourable in a similar way, I'm looking for interested partners who might want to get involved in the outset of this new project. If this sounds at all interesting please do get in touch - maybe you are a local authority that might be interesting in doing something different, maybe you are a festival programme that maybe wants something a little different ..... basically if this is interesting get in touch, even if its just to say you like the sound of it!
Below is a short video which is a 2 minute highlights film of what we did in Worcester with Rise:Ink, if nothing else you get to see me being tattooed live while being interviewed (the strangest filming I've ever done). Please share this post with your networks and anyone you think this may chime with, Thanks David x
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