Artys Bosvena Projects Shape Flamm 2026

Nine projects, funded by FEAST’s pilot place-based grant, Artys Bosvena, joins Flamm 2026 – shaping the festival through community collaborations.

Artuys Bosvena is all about celebrating Bodmin’s creativity, community, and people, and making a real difference to those who live here through arts and culture. Small grants are awarded to enable nine projects:

Alexander Prynne © Susan Quinland Stringer

HERE – Alexander Prynne

An immersive installation piece that explores and evokes neurodivergent safe spaces and experiences. It has been created by an autistic artist and in collaboration with the local neurodivergent community for an authentic experience.

Bodmin Speaks: Community Connections – Bodmin Open Circle with Kaleigh Barclay

An interactive experience, to explore identity, community and environment. Share your own stories and weave your ideas about how we can see Bodmin through a new lens and strengthen our connections and community. The drop-in workshop will be designed and led by young people of Bodmin who are engaged in RJ Working’s Open Circle. Your contributions will feed into a podcast, upcycled art and poster campaign.

No rules, Just words – Robert Gillett aka Beneath The Tracksuit

A relaxed live poetry performance featuring participants from the Writing with Robbie workshops. During January and February, spoken-word artist Robert Gillet facilitated four writing sessions exploring journaling and poetry as ways to share thoughts, stories and experiences. The performance offers an honest, welcoming glimpse into everyday community voices, celebrating creativity, self-expression and connection in an informal, supportive setting. A large handmade community book with thoughts, reflection and short poems from the wider community will also be available to view.

Dislocated Dresser: Family Automaton Making Workshop – Discovering 42 and Carlos Zapata

A free, family-friendly automaton-making workshop led by internationally recognised artist Carlos Zapata as part of Flamm 2026. Taking place at Discovering 42, families will work with recycled and everyday materials to create simple moving sculptures inspired by Zapata’s playful transformation of domestic objects. The hands-on, drop-in workshop encourages creativity, curiosity and environmental awareness, inviting participants to discover how imagination, engineering and reuse can bring ordinary materials to life.

Kinsman Ticket Tapestry – Hannah Jacobs and participants at Kinsman Estate

A Tapestry for tickets to anywhere, a collective artwork initiated by Hannah Jacobs with over 100 contributors all over Cornwall, will include additions from the residents at the Kinsman and Treningle Estate. In January and February, Hannah and the residents will use collage, movement and drawing to explore how public transport affects our lives and our connection to each other, and document the interesting and significant journeys in their lives.

Re:Rooted – Small Acts x Kitty Hillier and KBSK

A moving sculpture that playfully reroutes audiences as it journeys across Bodmin, connecting Flamm sites and locations by mapping ways to get from A to B through the eyes of young people who live in the town.

Collaborating with dancers from KBSK, this project by Small Acts and Kitty Hillier fuses sculpture and performance, people and place to explore navigation, roots and connectedness. Audiences are invited to explore the map, carry the sculpture, find the dance and become Re:Rooted.

Co-funded by Experience Bodmin

The Storybook of Bodmin – Amanda Young and SkillSHARE participants

A fun, interactive installation in the form of a walk-in book dedicated to the life-stories of our participants, offering visitors the opportunity to engage with the story-telling aspect of the project and to explore their own narratives as a result. The Storybook of Bodmin aims to see people come out of the shadows to recognise and discover their own significance through its pages, thus exploring their own mental and physical health and aspirations, and the place of Bodmin within this.

Brickfield Bodmin – Rosanna Martin and Tim Hutton

Learn how to mix a clay body using local clay, form a ‘clat’ and create your own Bodmin or Flamm brick by throwing it into a wooden brick mould. Brickfield is an experimental participatory brickworks set in a disused china clay quarry near St Austell. The initiative explores how the heritage of Cornish brick making can generate contemporary approaches to the material, and use the process of collective brick making as a tool for creating new connections, with each other, with materials and with the local landscape.

Woven voices: The Bodmin Dress Project – Rebecca Wood and Elaine Foster-Gandey

A collaborative textile artwork created by local artist Rebecca Wood with the Bodmin community. Through shared stories, memories, and handmade contributions, the dress reflects personal and collective transformation, celebrating Bodmin’s past, present, and creative spirit.