Ipswich will be awash with colour through a new mural painting project aimed at encouraging young people to get creative.
Participants will paint three murals during two weekends in May on the hoardings on St Peters Dock at the entrance to Ipswich Waterfront.
Art Eat Events, a social enterprise, has been organising workshops called Youth Mural Painting and is led by artists Lily Hammond, Frederico Ramos, Keith Hopewell, Nikki Goldup and Verity Slade.
The not-for-profit organisation is led by two independent arts producers, Daisy Lees and Iona Hodgson who have combined experience of 45 years in production, curation and fundraising.
Daisy Lees said: “The artists we work with lead art workshops for young people in a way that encourages them to be creative and involved in the activities in a meaningful way.
"Inspiring young people is about holding up a mirror to them and saying 'look how incredible you are!' The future belongs to young people so it's our job to nurture them as much as possible so that they can create positive change as they grow.”
Everyone is welcome to come and take part in the painting of the murals, volunteers who wish to help with painting will need to register online for time slots.
Each time slot is three hours long, starting at 10am and 2pm.
An official launch of the murals, accompanied by Skate Suffolk & HOAX event with prizes, music and celebrations will take place on Saturday, May 28.
Ms Lees added: “Yesterday a parent of a young participant from 2020 told me that her daughter decided to be an artist after she took part in painting the General Okoye mural (the first one on St Peter's Dock). This was fantastic to hear.
"We need to grow more artists as we go, artists are essential to humanity, and being an artist is a viable career. It's wonderful that our work together with the help of artists and partner organisations is inspiring this sort of ambition in young people.”
Art Eat Events also organises other events such as Paint Jam.
The event, along with an exhibition of two students from the University of Suffolk, photographer Dylan Winstone and curator Patrisiya Banova will celebrate 20 years of Stoke Bridge Skatepark and the local Skate community.
Ms Lees said that murals created by Ipswich residents get very positive feedback.
“Art is pretty interesting because people have different tastes and different ideas about the 'meaning' of images. The murals are in public places so it's important to us to include as many people as possible. At the moment we are very interested in how to encourage conversations about the art works.”
The organisation has been running online monthly open meetings and is planning to develop more opportunities for people to talk about art together.
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