Kidderminster Arts Festival
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This annual two week festival that takes place at the end of
August is packed with a wide variety of arts workshops,
performances, exhibitions, street entertainment and arts
demonstrations.
KAF creates an opportunity for people, who not only reside in the
Wyre Forest but also those who visit the area, to take part in arts
activity.
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Kidderminster Arts Festival 2010
KAF10 happened between the 14th and 28th of August with a
pre-KAF exhibition on July the 7th. We had to adjust some of the
performances due to the ongoing rain, we hope this didn't cause too
much inconvenience.
Despite the weather more people came this year than ever before.
24,098 people attended KAF10, which was an increase of 8,749 from
2009.
KAF is proud to say that:
- 148 local artists/performers contributed by delivering
workshops or performances and creating site specific artwork.
- KAF involved 204 artists in total.
- KAF hosted 143 events including shows, workshops, street
theatre, fine art exhibitions, installations, arts markets, dance
and puppetry.
If you had attended every event at the festival you would have
spent £49.00 over 12 days. The festival cost £0.32 per visitor to
the event.
We would like to thank all our sponsors and partners. These
included:
Probations Services, KAF Creatives, The Severn Stars Public
House, The Shuttle Newspaper, Radio Wyvern, Debenhams
What have you missed? - Visit the KAF10 Gallery
The festival offers a varied program each year, with something
for all ages and tastes. To see what you missed have a look
at the gallery. If you would like to present an act,
performance or workshop during KAF11 please contact the arts team
Click the image to visit this years gallery
Dragon's Den Commissioning Grant
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Dragon's Den
in partnership with
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Artists participate in a Dragon's Den style presentation.
For more information, contact the arts team on
01562 732928.
Xpressions and KAF have joined forces to offer a special annual
grant to artists to enable them to create a unique piece of work to
be shown at the festival.
Read more about the Xpressions/KAF Dragons
Den Grant
Contact the arts team for the date of the next Dragon's
Den.
Dragon's Den
Terms and Conditions 
(131K)
2010 Dragons Den Commissioned
Artist
Sarah Tamar - The Waiting
Room
Last year Sarah Tamar was awarded the
Xpressions funding for the commissioning of a unique piece of work
for KAF10.
Sarah is a local poet and painter who lives in
Kidderminster. The panel were impressed by her very community
focused and unusual proposal. Sarah has an impressive c.v.
and has worked nationally on a range of impressive projects.
The theme of the work was ‘waiting’, something
we all experience. Waiting for exam results, waiting for the
birth of a baby, waiting to open your Christmas presents, waiting
for love, and the ultimate wait, waiting for death.
Sarah worked with a number of local groups and
individuals to generate poetry and prose on the subject of waiting.
These groups included: Connect, Kemp Hospice, Kidderminster
College, Asha, Wyre Forest Writers, WEA and a number of individual
writers who submitted through the facebook Waiting Room event page.
Sarah worked with 160 people in total through her workshops.
All this writing was brought together through
recording readings and layering sounds to create an atmospheric
soundscape by sound artist Natasha Roberts.
This was all brought together in an installation which was built
by staff at Bewdley Museum and kindly hosted by the Swan Centre for
the duration of the festival.
It's hard to summarise the positive effects of this project,
feedback from the artist said that workshops were often intense,
emotional and cathartic. Sarah also wrote and shared her work at
every workshop so became very prolific and immersed in the
project.
We are continuing to develop the project and hope to have it
appear at other venues around the district and wider area.
If you didn't get a chance to visit The Waiting Room, you can
read some of the poems in the booklet created for those who
participated. Click the link below.
View the
waiting room booklet (17908K)
Listen to the
Soundscape
We would like to thank all those who
contributed to this project.
Get Involved!
KAF
Creatives
KAF Creatives are an independent group of
contemporary artists who meet monthly in Kidderminster. The
group was set up as a partner group who would work closely with KAF
(Kidderminster Arts Festival), to enable artists to use the event
as a platform to develop and show new work. The groups
emphasis is on mutual support, networking, creating access to
funding and sharing expertise, encouraging collaboration and
support of individuals projects
KAF Creatives formed in
2010 and delivered a range of ambitious projects as part of the
festival program. Subway Deluxe being the most notable, an
ambitious and collaborative project led by Dom Dunlea. Dom also
presented a tribute to Johnny the Cobbler through his stencil art
piece ‘A load of old Cobblers’. Individual members of the
group also contributed through performances and workshops, such as
Heather Wasties, extract from ‘SNUG’ from her company Brewers
Troupe, and Sophia Burges range of workshops and Sarah Tamar and
Natasha Roberts ‘Waiting Room’ installation.
The group had a major
impact on the festival and created strong creative links with each
other as artists.
KAF Creatives are now in
the process of generating funding and developing ideas for next
years KAF.
The group are friendly
and informal, they meet in local pubs to develop ideas and
socialise, they always welcome new members.
If you would like information on forthcoming meetings, please
email arts@wyreforestdc.gov.uk.
KAF
Creatives Terms of Reference (48K)
Give us your feedback
For anyone who attended KAF 10 please complete our online
evaluation
If you didn't attend this year it would really help us if you
could tell us
why
Measuring the impact of KAF
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Kidderminster Arts Festival was the subject of an in-depth
evaluation conducted by Audiences Central and funded by The Arts
Council West Midlands.
The study was commissioned to establish how the festival impacts on
the town and how local people feel about it. We hope to act upon
its findings and improve the festival based on sound
information.
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We wish to thank those who took the time to complete questionaries
and talk to our researchers. This evidence will help us secure
funds for the future of the festival.
View
the results of the evaluation (4,295K)
Please
continue to feedback to us (127K)
- your views are important to us.