Press Release: 20 November 2020   Illusionarium, the Havering festival of illusion and light will return for 2021 and there is up to £3,000 available for commissions in Romford Town Centre! Romford BID, Havering Changing and The Mercury Shopping centre have joined forces to support a festival for the borough in January, come rain or shine and they are asking local businesses and residents to be part of the fun.   The first opportunity in the build up to the event includes the opportunity to create a public artwork to be displayed as part of a family trail in Romford TownCentre, and the festival team are urging local businesses and creatives to apply.   “A light festival is a great opportunity to celebrate during the dark months of January and February and we would love to see as many local people and businesses to get involved as possible. We know that we have a huge community spirit in Romford and Havering and would like to help make that truly grow in the new year!” say...

It’s been bubbling up in the background for a while, but we can finally announce the creation of a ‘brand-spanking-new’ social artists network in Havering ! Created by the self-proclaimed-uber-social local collectives Brennan and Burch, Bluerskies Mindful Creatives & The NO Collective. Our first socially distanced gathering will be in two weeks where we will watch some short films at The Romford Film Festival and have a chat! Simple but effective! Wednesday 18 August 5:45pm (films start at 6pm) to 8:30pm Premiere Cinemas The Mercury Shopping Centre Mercury Gardens Romford RM1 3EE We have been craving a creative network locally for a long time, and hopefully we will do our local artists justice. Booking is essential, but payment is not! For now our network will be ran voluntarily, and we will always do our best to keep it cheap and cheerful! Especially considering our creative economy at present! You can find more about YAYmates in our community page on our website click HERE #com...

Local people become ‘Artists in residence’ through new project aimed at bringing art and wellbeing to Havering homes. Over the past week, hundreds of ‘Home Inside-Out’ creativity guides have been hand-delivered to Havering residents to help locals spruce up their homes and explore their local neighborhoods through new ‘post-lockdown’ eyes.   Created by architecture studio WSMS, this guide gives handy tips to create inspired spaces within your home without having to spend any money, and offers fantastic family ideas of how to get out and about to explore your town as an ‘Urban Investigator’.   ‘Home-Inside Out’ is the first of a series of initiatives that local arts Organisation ‘The NO Collective’ will be running throughout the summer called ‘ourNEST‘, a programme highlighting the work of great local artists, and helping residents find inspiration from their homes and towns. “You may have seen a 6ft Bird House’ being erected outside the ASDA queue in The Mercury in Romford” sa...

On June 17th, Natalie, our co-founder and MD was asked to host an international conference on the importance of cultural regeneration and creativity in public spaces. Organised by OCA Magazine and The Eurasian Creative Guild, 11 countries were represented in the call with over 25 participants joining to speak about their work and to gain inspiration for post-COVID-19 projects from each other. The main discussion points meandered around how although artists are innately flexible to their working conditions, our inspiration within public art is the positive change for its audience (the people) and members of the public should be central in reviving a creative presence in towns and cities around the world. Whether this be by online discussions, postal activities or socially distanced gatherings, the people are the beating heart of the city and there is duplicative and catalysing power between residents and artists working together. You can watch the full conversation at ‘ECG TV’ the offic...