As part of Wirral’s Borough of Culture programme, libraries across the peninsula are getting a huge injection of culture. From mid-July to mid-September, Wirral Libraries, Birkenhead Park and Wirral Country Park will come alive with vibrant activities and the joy of live performances.
The summer-long project, Green Bibliofest, is using community storytelling to bring conversations about climate, nature and sustainability to life, with fringe projects including the Story Patch quilt, which has been under development across dozens of galleries, studios, libraries and cafes for the last few months.
Across the project, libraries across the Wirral will be transformed into event and performance spaces, with workshops and theatre taking centre stage. Families will be offered an opportunity to reach out beyond the libraries too, as this cross-disciplinary project is supported by Wirral Ranger service, bringing craft workshops for all ages to Birkenhead Park and Wirral Country Park alongside the library programme.
Ahead of the announcement of Wirral Borough of Culture’s full artistic programme, this celebration of craft, nature and literature is a fascinating insight into what the rest of the programme holds, but also an ambitious project in its own right, and one of the widest reaching BoC projects since the initiative started.
Green Bibliofest starts on the 17th of July, and runs right through to 10th September with participants from the rest of the festival invited to a nature-themed story session with Sophia Hatfield, Storyteller in Residence at the Brontë Parsonage Museum.
The opening day sees Birdie, a beautiful show from Mind The Gap, featuring three professional performers with learning disabilities which blends intricate choreography, tell a powerful story about climate change take over Birkenhead Central Library on 17th July.
And at Wirral Country Park on 29th July, nature does its own storytelling with pond-dipping workshops led by the rangers.
The wider project features dozens of events, with several each week right through the summer holidays for families, kids and adults, and some of the Wirral’s most passionate artists are leading hands-on workshops, introduction us all to storytelling in very different ways.
Pam Sullivan and Jo Gomez are running a Pledge to the Planet workshop, with a new tree sculpture for contributors to add their own climate pledges to, and Little Vintage Photography are offering audiences a chance to learning about the alchemy of photography with her own handmade camera, where participants can create photography from recycled materials.
Julie Dodd’s intricate and impressive fungi sculptures, which have adorned galleries across the country, are also the focus of one workshop (12th August), where new-comers to hands-on craft are taught to create beautiful fungi from recycled paper and tree bark.
And Alison Baily Smith’s inimitable free-form creations are worth getting involved with in August, where flowers and pollinators are presented as a source of inspiration for new sculptures made entirely from recycled materials.
Libraries will also be launching loanable nature kit bags in partnership with Eco Schools, Cool Wirral and Wirral Rangers later this month.
Green Bibliofest, supported by Wirral Libraries and Wirral Rangers, is a huge upscaling of cultural engagement, not just across libraries, but across the borough. It’s unusual to see so many passionate visual artists engaged so publicly, and, as the rest of this paper shows, that’s the tip of the iceberg.
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Details with times and locations, with booking options, will be available from mid-June onwards at www.wirral2024.com and www.wirral.gov.uk/libraries
Tickets for bookable events (nearly all events are free) are available at wirrallibraries.eventbrite.co.uk from mid-June.
For drop-in sessions please see webpages before planning your visit for the latest information about the event.
If you require any additional information email libraries@wirral.gov.uk