About This Event

Step into the wonderful world of medieval pageantry in this playful, experimental collage workshop as part of Shambles exhibition Medieval Pageant Wagons: Collage Workshop Step into the wonderful world of medieval pageantry in this playful, experimental collage workshop for adults. Inspired by the elaborate pageant wagons and processions of medieval guilds, we'll imagine our own fantastical vehicles and create surreal, and wonderfully improbable designs. Think medieval pageant meets Wacky Races. An artist led workshop as part of Shambles an exhibition by Klaire Doyle, Anna FC Smith & Matthew Wood. 16th - 23rd October. Location: Floor 4, Leigh Spinners Mill, Park Lane, Leigh, WN7 2LB. We'll explore the idea of the body politic; the way communities have imagined society as a living body, with different people, groups and institutions forming parts of a larger whole. Medieval pageants brought civic life, guilds, trades, religion and spectacle together in the streets, turning the city into a stage and the community into a moving, living body. We'll use collage as a way of constructing strange new worlds, cutting up and recombining imagery to create fantastical pageant wagons. What happens when bodies, buildings, animals, tools, food, civic symbols and completely unexpected objects are brought together on wheels? Rather than aiming for a polished or realistic image, we'll experiment with visual absurdity. The process is about seeing what happens when different images and ideas collide. Could your wagon carry a giant mythical creature? A travelling feast? An enormous pair of teeth? A strange civic monument? Represent a whole community? Or perhaps something that makes absolutely no sense at all…. In the workshop we'll explore: Medieval guild pageants, processions and the spectacle of the pageant wagon The idea of the body politic and how communities can be imagined as a collective body Collage as a way of cutting up, rearranging and reimagining imagery Creating strange relationships between bodies, objects, symbols and spaces Experimenting with scale, repetition, texture and pattern Developing surreal compositions through layering and chance Creating your own fantastical pageant wagon The collage process gives us an opportunity to work spontaneously and experimentally, allowing unexpected combinations and strange juxtapositions to become part of the final image. No previous experience of collage is needed. This is an opportunity to play and make something gloriously strange, with some history in the mix! Come prepared to cut, stick, layer, rearrange and ask the important question: What can go on wheels?

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