Recently the Southbank Centre approached us to be part of the WHY? What’s Happening for the Young Festival (22-25th October). We had built a relationship with them after Barry and Margaret Mizen MBEs were chosen to be part of the 67 ‘Change Makers’ exhibition at the Festival of Love 2015. The festival took inspiration from Nelson Mandela’s 67 years of public service, with 67 people who are dedicated to making change in their community and having a positive impact on the lives of others.
The WHY? Festival was created to celebrate the rights of children and young people. Looking at how the needs and ideas of under-18s can influence the world around them. After initial conversations around the role For Jimmy could play at the festival, we put forward an idea for a large piece of artwork that would take over the whole frontage of the Southbank Café.
To follow on from last year’s Drive for Peace, we are going to bring together those same 65 primary schools that took part to create a Peace Mosaic. The mosaic will be a dynamic artwork that encapsulates the hopes of hundreds of young people living in south London. Made up of around one hundred Perspex acrylic sheets along the length of the Southbank Centre café, the Mosaic will grow over WHY? Festival, with hundreds of young people adding their handprints to the artwork.
Each piece of the mosaic will be dedicated to a different school, and annotated with one of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child articles. Every handprint added will represent hope for a future where each of these rights of young people will always be upheld and protected.
Every handprint added will represent hope for a future where each of these rights of young people will always be upheld and protected.
At the end of the four days, we will give schools and organisations attending the opportunity to take their mosaic piece away as a memory of the festival so that it lives on past the actual event. For the second half of the festival we will also invite members of the public to add their handprints to separate sheets, as a pledge to support the young people and each of the Rights of the Child articles.
We’re really excited at the prospect of working with the Southbank Centre, and look forward to taking all of our young people up to the city to create the Peace Mosaic.
