Arts festival will unite us
This newspaper is delighted to be part of the #Sussextogether Festival of the Arts , which will be a powerful celebration of our strength in adversity.
The #Sussextogether Festival of the Arts will be a powerful celebration of our strength in adversity.
It will also look forward with optimism – testimony to the ‘talent, strength, endurance and hopes of the people of Sussex in a difficult year’, organisers say.
It will offer an exhibition of art, sculpture and photography alongside evenings of poetry, music and possibly theatrical performance – all in celebration of the way our communities negotiated and survived the darkest days of March, April and May.
The festival will also rejoice in the way our communities have moved into the renewed optimism of early summer with significant areas of lockdown starting to ease.
The #Sussextogether Festival of the Arts will be a collaboration between Chichester Cathedral and Sussex Newspapers.
The diocese of Chichester is pretty much co-terminus with Sussex; Sussex Newspapers comprises all your trusted favourite titles across the two counties.
Canon Daniel Inman, Chancellor of Chichester Cathedral, said: “The aim of the #Sussextogether Festival is to encourage people across Sussex to get creative during the lockdown and the subsequent easing – painting, sculpting, photographing, writing prose, poetry and drama and composing – around the theme of #sussextogether however people wish to interpret it.
“The festival will – both online across the summer and showcased for a fortnight in November in Chichester Cathedral – testify to the talent, strength, endurance and hopes of the people of Sussex in a difficult year.”
Dan added: “November would be particularly appropriate as a time when in the Church calendar we naturally ponder those whom we have loved and lost, but it’s also as a time of hopeful expectation. I think the exhibition could be a powerful testimony to both honouring those we’ve lost but also looking with hope to our future.”
People can exhibit online during the lockdown and its aftermath, posting their creations on social media using the hashtag #sussextogetherfest or tagging @sussextogether on Twitter and Instagram.
If social distancing permits, the most inspiring artistic contributions will be showcased in a twoweek festival in Chichester Cathedral in the first two weeks of November.
The hope is also to arrange a number of guest speakers during the festival. If social distancing makes this impossible, the exhibition be online only. Bestselling novelist and playwright
Kate Mosse, who lives in Chichester, has agreed to be one of the new festival’s patrons along with The Bishop of Chichester, The Right Rev Martin Warner.
Kate said: “As a Chi girl born and bred, it’s a great pleasure to be a patron for this unique festival designed to celebrate and honour the creativity, imagination, inspiration, creativity and determination of the people of this wonderful county of ours. The importance of the arts to transform, to entertain, to bring hope and perspective and joy, to foster community spirit and purpose, cannot be underestimated. This festival, championing the best of Sussex, is an excellent way to mark these strange times.”
Submissions to the Cathedral exhibition and performances will be judged by panels made up of leading local artists, writers and musicians. You can send photos/work to sussextogether@gmail. com or upload them via www.sussextogether.org; use also @sussextogether on Twitter; www.facebook. com/sussextogether; and @ sussextogether on Instagram.