MAKEMORE Festival

London’s first maker festival, MAKEMORE, is giving independent artists a platform to promote their craftmanship, in a bid to take back the High Street and encourage people to learn unique crafts that are at risk of extinction in the digital age. Makers such as Aardman, Barn the Spoon and Turning Earth will be hosting workshops and demos at the August bank holiday festival, where guests can learn unique skills, some that feature on the Heritage Craft Association Red List of Endangered Crafts.

London’s first maker festival, MAKEMORE, is giving independent artists a platform to promote their craftmanship to the public, in a bid to take back the High Street from large commercial companies and encourage the public to get offline and make with their hands.

MAKEMORE encompasses the traditional party atmosphere of a festival with bars, street food stalls and a funfair, but also includes an element of immersive creativity, making it both unique and family friendly.

The inaugural festival will take place in Victoria Park from Thursday 23rd – Monday 27th August, and will bring together more than 100 artists, crafters, cooks and musicians to promote independent artistry.

The UK’s top independent makers will host workshops and demos at the four-day long festival that guests can get stuck into, with organisers hoping the activities will inspire the public to take up a new hands-on skill, and show them how entrepreneurial makers are going against the grain of the normal 9-5 work life.

The festival will feature skills such as weaving with Whelans Weaving, paper marbling with Paperwilds and furniture making with the Goldfinger Factory, all of which appear on the Heritage Crafts Association (HCA) Red List of Endangered Crafts.

Research carried out on behalf of the HCA has found that cricket ball making, sieve and riddle making, gold beating and lacrosse stick making have all become extinct in the last 10 years in Britain. Crafts including piano making, saw making, fore edge painting and metal thread making are also at risk due to an insufficient number of craftspeople to pass on the proper skills and knowledge.

Modern makers exhibiting at the festival include Wallace and Gromit creators Aardman Animations, polish chandelier artist Karolina Merska and street artist Nathan Bowen. A full list of MAKEMORE makers and how to book tickets to their workshops can be found here: https://makemore.art/makers/

For both experienced creatives and amateurs who want to get stuck in, MAKEMORE is an opportunity to explore a variety of activities without having to sign up for long courses with hefty fees. The family friendly festival is also running children’s entertainment and workshops every day from companies like the Polka Theatre and Little Angel Theatre.

MAKEMORE was founded by James Cartwright, Daz Guerin and John Wilkie with the aim of shining much needed light on fading traditional skills as well as showing the public how easy it is to get into making. The festival also has the backing of Will Ramsey, Founder and CEO of the Affordable Art Fair.