Tag: Creative People and Places

St George’s Fayre 2025

Posted on by Lucy Amos

Below, you’ll find our full programme of events, including the infamous St George’s parade.

During the Parade – Starting at 10am from Robingoodfellows Lane

Same Sky puppets – An extraordinary procession of magnificent giant puppets! Witness the legendary St George and an enchanting princess puppet come to life in a vibrant community celebration. In the weeks leading up to the Fayre, Same Sky will be hosting local workshops to craft and prepare more extraordinary parade elements with the community for them to proudly display during the parade.

Enchanted Flower Globe – Meet Floris, the joyful flower nymph who lives inside this magical and unique mobile microclimate. Her magical world is filled with butterflies and charm, magic and wonder. The globe will also be at the market place when not performing in the parade – come and meet Floris and the creatures she lives among.

Plus – Look out for the giant March Hare created by local artist Cary Outis!

Drop-in activities in the Dome, 11am – 4pm

Potting and Planting workshop – Learn how to start a herb garden on your windowsill. Discover the pleasures of using home-grown herbs in your cooking while learning about growing your own food.

Wildflower Seed ball creation – Create your own wildflower seed balls. Perfect for enhancing your garden’s biodiversity, supporting community green spaces, or giving as thoughtful, sustainable gifts.

Herbal Tea Tasting – Try a selection of naturally grown herbal teas while learning about their various health benefits. Learn about how these natural remedies can lead to a healthier body and mind.

WiseUp RiseUp DJ Workshop – On-the-day bookable sessions, with 15 slots available on a first-come, first-served basis. Hands-on interactive sessions learning the basic of DJing on industry standard equipment with experienced industry professionals.

Selling vintage fabrics (outside the Dome) – Browse the sustainable fabrics by ‘byKatyMac,’ an eco-conscious designer specialising in slow fashion. Discover unique garments and theatrical costumes crafted from vintage and pre-loved household textiles.

Plus – More free, drop-In activities to be announced!

MarketPlace Arts, the new name for MarketPlace, a statement from Creative Director and CEO Rob Drummer

Posted on by Lucy Amos

I wanted to explain these changes and share how we’ve arrived at this point as well as celebrate the brilliant support we’ve had getting here. Since I joined the organisation in January 2024, I have been deeply inspired by the projects with our communities and the growing of new relationships across Fenland and West Suffolk.

MarketPlace is currently in its third phase of Arts Council England’s Creative People and Places Programme which by spring 2026 will mean 11 years of co-creating a diverse range of activities, events and projects with communities across Fenland and West Suffolk. Since the beginning we have been supported by a consortium of partners, led by Babylon Arts who all invest a huge amount of time and resources into our programme.  

Following the decision by trustees of Babylon Arts to close the organisation by September 2025, we were informed that reluctantly Babylon would be stepping away from the MarketPlace programme as of 31st March 2025. In order to secure our funding from Arts Council England and to continue delivering our programme, MarketPlace Arts has constituted as a charity in its own right.

As well as moving our administrative office from Ely to March, the team will be working more frequently in each of the market towns across Fenland and West Suffolk year round. We are especially grateful to the town councils of Chatteris and Wisbech, and our partners in Brandon and Mildenhall for helping us look for a base and are keen to find workspace in Whittlesey and Newmarket by spring 2026. Our small but dedicated team already travels across the region, working on a series of projects year round and we can’t wait to have even more of a presence as the year progresses. 

For any of you who have been following the past 12 months of our work, you hopefully have seen some of the incredible events our communities have co-created. We’re on a mission to meet more people, produce larger, more surprising and diverse activities and can’t wait to get stuck into the next year. This is an exciting time for culture in Fenland and West Suffolk and we are looking forward to being useful in supporting everyone who lives, works and studies here access high quality creative activity. 

Rob Drummer

Creative Director & CEO 

Centre Stage

Posted on by Lucy Amos

Project Overview

Centre Stage puts the people of Wisbech in the spotlight, celebrating the diversity of the people that call this historic town their home. The project draws inspiration from a remarkable unfinished painting in the Wisbech and Fenland Museum’s collection. This project is a powerful narrative of Wisbech’s living history, bridging past and present by celebrating the community’s rich diversity and ongoing story.

Historical Inspiration

The project is rooted in an unfinished painting by Alfred Balding, depicting Wisbech Market Place during the celebrations for Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee in 1887. This artwork features many of the town’s residents within a still-recognisable market place backdrop, with many locals having paid for the privilege of being featured.

Contemporary Vision

CentreStage aims to capture a contemporary snapshot of Wisbech through photographic portraits representing the diverse communities that make up the town. These portraits will be housed within a unique, theatre set-inspired model that reimagines the market place for the 21st century.

Community Collaboration

The project will be created through a collaborative effort involving the community of Wisbech, lead artists Electric Egg, and a professional set designer.

Exhibition Details

The final interactive installation will be shared and displayed at the Wisbech & Fenland Museum in October 2025, featuring the new portraits alongside the original 1887 painting.

Want to get involved or find out more?

Email us at hello@marketplacearts.org.uk

Light Up The Town

Posted on by Lucy Amos

The Light Up The Town project successfully brought communities together across Fenland and West Suffolk, transforming local towns with stunning light projection art during early 2025. Collaborating with SDNA Moving Image, the project illuminated public spaces and historic buildings, creating magical evenings that brought residents together during the transition from winter to spring.

We saw over 1,500 of you visit the light shows that lit up buildings in Chatteris, March, Wisbech, Whittlesey, Brandon, Mildenhall, and Newmarket in early 2025.

West Suffolk Light Shows

The West Suffolk leg of the project featured three captivating evenings:

  • Brandon came alive on Tuesday, 25th February at the Town Council’s Old School House on Market Hill
  • Mildenhall was beautifully illuminated on Wednesday, 26th February at St. Mary’s Church
  • Newmarket concluded the West Suffolk shows on Thursday, 27th February at St. Mary’s Church

Fenland Light Celebrations

The Fenland towns followed with their own spectacular light displays:

  • Wisbech kicked off on Monday, 3rd March at Museum Square
  • March hosted its event on Wednesday, 5th March at the Town Hall
  • Chatteris shone brightly on Thursday, 6th March at the Church of St Peter & St Paul
  • Whittlesey concluded the series on Friday, 7th March at Saint Mary’s Church

Community Response

The free, family-friendly events drew significant community participation. Residents enjoyed the experiencing the mesmerising light projections that transformed familiar local landmarks into canvases of artistic expression.

The project successfully achieved its goal of reconnecting communities, offering a unique and uplifting cultural experience that celebrated local heritage and creativity.

Fen Voices performance

Posted on by Lucy Amos

On a beautiful Summer’s evening community writers and their family and friends from across Fenland and Suffolk met for the first time at the Fenland Orchard’s Project, Wisbech to hear local actors bring a new verse drama to life.

These first-time and returning writers joined facilitator Belona Greenwood’s Voices of Forest & Fen online workshops to research and create historical and modern stories from the Fens which were then woven into a verse drama – Fen Voices – which took inspiration from Dylan Thomas’ Under Milk Wood, 

An audience member described the event as ‘…moving, unexpected…’ whilst the writers enjoyed seeing and hearing the fruits of their labour, meeting with the other people who shaped it, making new friends and meeting new people with shared values. “It’s all about people and place, and this was brought together well. Feels like the start of something, not the end.”

Read Belona’s blog introducing the original project

Arts Council England confirm 2025-2026 funding for MarketPlace

Posted on by Rob Drummer

£250,000 of funding for the next year means our ambitious plans with our Fenland & West Suffolk communities are ready to get underway

£250,000 of funding for the next year means our ambitious plans with our Fenland & West Suffolk communities are ready to get underway.

Arts Council England have today confirmed their funding for MarketPlace for 2025-2026 for our work in Fenland & West Suffolk.

‘The experience was transformative, fostering a new sense of adventure in our family. It boosted the children’s confidence in public settings and reinforced my efforts to expose them to diverse activities.’

– MarketPlace Participant, 2024

MarketPlace is part of the Creative People and Places programme, supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England. Thanks to National Lottery players, Creative People and Places is about more people taking the lead in choosing, creating and taking part in creative and cultural experiences in the places where they live.

Every National Lottery ticket purchase contributes to more villages, towns, and cities up and down the country being able to thrive through a collaborative approach to culture – from Wigan to Walsall, from Rochdale to the New Forest, and from Boston to Basildon.

This is a ground-breaking programme where programmes test new approaches and share that learning with others, meaning more creative individuals and cultural organisations will be able to develop work with, and that’s relevant to, more communities across the country.

Stay tuned as we reveal more exciting projects coming to Fenland and West Suffolk!

Get in touch if you want to hear more about our plans or share ideas for creative projects where you live.

Mildenhall Art Trail

Posted on by Lucy Amos

The trail featured 50 works of art, created by Mildenhall residents during Art Road Trip; a MarketPlace project in partnership with The National Gallery and Mildenhall Museum celebrating the 90th anniversary of The Great Air Race from Mildenhall to Melbourne in 1934.

There were artworks created by the local community in five different locations around Mildenhall such as collage, painting and Van Gogh inspired pieces.

Community launch – the community launch event was held where goodies were handed out to walkers who completed the trail. MarketPlace met with members of the Mildenhall community and local residents to share ideas about future creative projects.

Visitors were able to take a closer look at the buildings and locations, immerse themselves in art, and uncover fascinating facts about The Great Air Race along the way.

“We’ve really enjoyed the trail and the kids have really enjoyed it as well. It’s been nice to have the map to see where we need to go. The artwork has been lovely to look at and the historical pieces of information along the way have been really good to learn about.”

MarketPlace expressed gratitude to Mildenhall Museum, the National Gallery, and all of the brilliant artists who created the artwork that was discovered during the trail.

“I was excited to find that it was happening on our doorstep”

“The Art Road Trip and Trail are so important to the community of Mildenhall as it brought the community together to either experience something new or build on an existing interest in art. The artwork from the trail is still displayed at Mildenhall Hub and it is lovely to see visitors stopping to have a look and discuss the art.” – Michelle Slater, Assistant Facilities Manager at The Hub, Mildenhall 

Click here to view the digital trail map

Wisbech Rose Fair

Posted on by Lucy Amos

We returned to Rose Fair, with lots of creativity and fun for everyone to get involved with in and around the town centre.

We reunited with the brilliant Mandinga Arts who took part in the parade and performed their brand new show ‘Pansy Postal Service’ at in the church gardens, complete with human flowers. Their bright and imaginative costumes were the perfect addition to the parade.

Artist Karin Forman held drop-in creative sessions in the sensory garden where people could make their own intricate paper flowers to take home.

Plus, we unveiled our street art sculpture which was installed in Horse Fair shopping centre, designed and spray-painted by the local community in our public workshops with Artist and Illustrator Nick Shove.

Rose Fair spraypainting workshops

Posted on by Lucy Amos

The community got stuck into our drop-in spray painting sessions at REMO in Wisbech, guided by street artist Nick Shove in the lead up to Wisbech Rose Fair.

These drop-in workshops were free and suitable for all ages. White umbrellas were used to spray on the colourful designs. These were then built into a giant sculpture which was on display during Wisbech Rose Fair.

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