Fruit Routes harvest is returning....
THE annual Fruit Routes harvest event is returning to the Loughborough University campus this week and it promises two days of interesting discussion and activities.
From October 19-20, staff, students and members of the local community will come together on campus to enjoy the celebrations, which features the popular campus apple ‘Bake Off’.
The event is part of the award-winning Fruit Routes project – an artist-led initiative, created by Anne-Marie Culhane working with the university’s Sustainability team, that aims to develop the campus as an edible landscape and share knowledge with the wider community through engaging and creative events.
Programme highlights over the two days include:
• Apple pressing with Transition Loughborough, where all are welcome to make juice and cider from campus and home-grown apples
• Two walks around the Fruit Route, one where participants can forage for plants for eating and fabric dyeing and the other sharing perspectives on Fruit Routes and the wider context of sustainability and working with communities
• Craft and making activities suitable for all
ages and abilities, including pumpkin carving and mask-making
• Harvest Day celebration including the campus apple Bake Off judging, food and later a bonfire supported by the Landscaping and Gardening Society (LAGS) in their garden on campus.
LU Arts, the university’s arts programme, is also joining in the harvest fun and has helped organise two events: a panel discussion exploring ways in which radical approaches to design
help develop collective responses to climate change, and a plant dyeing workshop with artist Georgina Barney.
Loughborough University’s sustainability manager Jo Shields said: “We are really looking forward to welcoming our community to this year’s event which is a celebration of our abundant campus. Get baking!”
Anne-Marie Culhane added: “We are excited to be sharing the campus harvest with people of all ages through walks, apple pressing, the campus apple Bake Off, feasting and making together.
“We are also delighted to be working alongside LU Arts to reflect on ways artists and communities can come together to respond to climate change and other ecological challenges of our times and to learn about dyeing fabric with foraged plants.”
Nick Slater, director of LU Arts, said the team were “delighted” to be adding to the weekend of harvest events.
He said: “We have put together an excellent line-up of speakers for our Designing for Climate Futures discussion and we look forward to seeing the results of artist Georgina Barney’s plant dyeing walk and workshop.”
The events are free and open to all. More information, including times, locations and Bake Off details, can be found on the programme flyer at https://fruitroutesloughborough.wordpress. com/ 2018/ 09/ 24/ whats- on- harvest19-20-october-2018/
Those wishing to attend the panel discussion or plant dyeing workshop are asked to book a place by emailing luarts@lboro.ac.uk
For any enquiries, contact Anne-Marie Culhane on mail@amculhane.co.uk or 07849 073394. You can also follow Fruit Routes on Twitter.