Meet The Makers 8: GRAFT

Hi! We’re Ellie and Saul, and we run GRAFT, a community arts organisation based in Lancaster.

Ellie is an artist, currently doing a PhD at Lancaster University, and Saul is a former teacher who now runs projects with cultural organisations and young people.

As GRAFT, we want to bring lots of exciting contemporary art to Lancaster, working with brilliant artists from around the country at the start of their careers to be part of pop-up exhibitions, run workshops, and take part in other public art events. We want everything we do to include opportunities for the local community to try out creative skills, learn something new, and think about new ideas through art.

We’re really excited to be part of Lancaster Fun Palace this year, as we love events that harness the power of creativity to engage families and young people. For the Fun Palace, we will be putting on an exhibition of eight emerging artists in Lancaster Library’s Sanctuary room (upstairs!) All of these artists create work that we think is FUN – whether it uses humour and colourful images, or invites the audience to interact with it in some way. At the same time, fun can be used as a way to explore other themes, including gender, bodies and politics. The exhibition will open with an event on Friday 4th October, 6-8pm (please come if you can!) and will run through to Saturday 12th October.

For the Fun Palace weekend we will also be running workshops in the space, suitable for all ages. On Saturday 5th October, artists Sophie Chapman and Kerri Jefferis will run a drop-in workshop exploring different ways of ‘playing’ in the gallery. Join them for a unique and unforgettable experience that could completely change what you think about contemporary art and galleries! On Sunday 6th October, the GRAFT team will be inviting visitors to the space to interact with the artworks in funny and unexpected ways, and create some artworks of their own.

For more information about GRAFT and the event please visit www.graftlancaster.com

We hope to see you there!

Ellie and Saul