Imagine Bamboo Is Everywhere is coming to Kings Gardens in Southport this summer!
The creative street art project will feature dancers, parkour performers, gymnasts, and street performers from across the Liverpool City Region.
They are performing with giant animated artworks, made entirely of sustainable bamboo, as part of this year’s Cultural Events programme.
You can see them between 11am and 4pm on Saturday 26th August at Kings Gardens, Southport.
Visitors can marvel at large-scale artworks made by local artists, with bamboo harvested locally from Ness Botanical Gardens.
Enjoy music from the Imagine Bamboo Orchestra, led by Pagoda Arts, with young musicians from across the region.
Look out for promenade physical theatre performances, run away with the bamboo circus, then have a go at making your own creation in our bamboo crafting zone.
All free of charge, no ticket required.
Imagine Bamboo is Everywhere is delivered by outdoor arts company Imagineer with artistic director Orit Azaz.
It will see communities from across the city region building six interlinked artworks in each of the six local authority areas, including in Sefton, culminating with spectacular events filled with bamboo structures, performances and workshops at outdoor events in August.
Councillor Mike Wharton, Portfolio Holder for Culture, Tourism and The Visitor Economy for the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority said:
“What I love about this project is that it’s not just about the culture, creativity and talent that goes into a project of this magnitude.
“It is also helping us consider the environmental aspect and how that will affect us all in the long term.
“Exploring sustainable materials like bamboo is absolutely key in sourcing alternative materials – especially when it’s done in such a creative way.
“It will be an amazing sight to see when the engineers, designers, communities and performers get together and the installations begin to take shape.”
Stronger and cheaper than steel, bamboo has a long tradition of being used as a structural material for scaffolding, bridges, housing, and buildings in areas of Asia, Africa and South America, with environmentalists now encouraging Western countries to adopt the practice in a bid to help the planet.
Residents, young climate leaders and artists are set to come together with engineers from Atelier One and bamboo specialists from four continents to explore bamboo as a sustainable material for the future.
Jane Hytch from Imagineer said:
“We are excited to be collaborating once again with Artistic Director Orit Azaz especially with the wide range of amazing engineers, entrepreneurs and designers from across the UK, and internationally, coming together to explore the potential of bamboo.
“We are so excited by the potential to collaborate with people from across the world to exchange skills and ideas and create beautiful strong lightweight structures at a variety of scales right here in the Liverpool City Region.”
‘Imagine Bamboo is Everywhere’ is part of the LCR Cultural Events programme which brought the Lost Castles and Constellations projects that were held in the city region in 2018 and 2019 followed by the bamboo Bridge project in Liverpool in 2021.
It is part of Mayor Steve Rotheram’s 1% for Culture programme, which earmarks £300,000 per year – 1% of the CA’s core funding – to activities designed to promote culture and creativity.
To find out more information on Imagine Bamboo is Everywhere go to: www.imagine-bamboo.co.uk
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