Sew delighted to run textile festival
ARTS coordinator HATCH will run the next edition of Kirklees’ Woven textile festival.
The organisation, led by Natalie Walton and Alison McIntyre, was successful in being awarded a £160,000 contract.
It was behind this summer’s edition of the biennial event and will curate the next edition in 2023.
A spokesperson for Kirklees Council, which funds the event, said: “HATCH CIC, through an open tender process, secured the role of Woven in Kirklees Festival Curator for 2021 and 2023.
“After this point we will go back out to tender for this role.”
HATCH was founded in 2018 “with a shared ethos around hosting safe spaces for communities to create, make and debate, and a collective interest in how art, through good facilitation, can make a real difference to people’s lives.”
The Woven festival, described as “a celebration of innovation in textiles”, was first held as a week-long event in 2019.
Now a biennial event, it will present a mix of smaller partnership events in between a big festival every other June.
This year’s theme was described as “generations of innovators, connecting a strong heritage with today’s innovative developments in industry, university research, a strong arts and crafts scene and the creative expression of the district’s diverse communities.”
Dozens of events were held across the district throughout June including installations, art exhibitions, online talks, workshops, valley walks, flower felting and drop-in craft activities.
The new curator’s contract was anticipated to begin on October 1 with an expiry date of September 2023.
There is provision to extend the role for a further 24 months to accommodate another festival.