Thames Pride Arts Festival

Avant-Gardening C.I.C

Thames Pride Arts Festival

A project by Avant-Gardening C.I.C

Thames Pride Arts Festival

Thames Pride Arts Festival is a new project by Avant-Gardening's Bijou Stories to work with the LGBTQ+ communities of Lewisham and Greenwich to develop a Thames-side arts festival for 2024.

We will be working with the local community to co-curate Thames Pride Arts Festival, a uniquely grassroots Pride that will bring together local people with some of the arts organisations and professional artists based in these vibrant and creative SE London boroughs.
Participants will be invited to take part in artist-led workshops that will support them in developing and delivering performances and new art for the festival. Whether participants want to create and show their art, showcase their musical talent or develop a piece of performance art, we will be here to help them develop and showcase their skills. And for those that are more of a ‘behind the scenes’ type we will be holding meetings, supporting project management and outreach skills, giving participants transferable skills in arts administration.

As well as being fun, these social activities will help create informal communities for people that may be vulnerable to isolation and mental health issues. We are particularly keen to invite LGBTQ+ people over 55+ as these are people that are most likely to experience loneliness and feel excluded from 'the scene'.

Supporting emergent artists.

We will be using Thames Pride as a way of showcasing emergent talent and are hoping to be able to offer bursaries to upcoming artists to create new work for the festival, this could be a performative work, an audio/video piece, or a new performance, whether it be dance, stand-up comedy or a scratch night to animate the festival.

Partnerships.

The Albany
Greenwich University
Metro Charity
Protein Dance
Royal Museums Greenwich

are confirmed as project partners and will be offering their expertise and spaces to the project. We are also in talks with a number of other organisations that we hope will join us in this celebration of the creative LGBTQ+ community and their allies.
Royal Museums Greenwich have already curated a programme of events for the project launch week Thames Pride Arts Festival | Royal Museums Greenwich (rmg.co.uk)

We have received funding from The National Lottery Community Fund to develop the project and run workshops with the community. Now we need to raise funds to realise the festival itself. All donations will help us to put on an ambitious festival and to fund the bursaries that will support emergent artists.
Donations will help us deliver additional workshops with older members of the LGBTQ+ community, support people with mental health problems in being an active part of the creative community, or contribute to the general expenses of delivering Thames Pride Arts Festival in 2024.

If you are a local business and would like to be an official sponsor, we would love to hear from you to discuss how your business can benefit through association with the Thames Pride Arts Festival.

Beth allai eich rhodd ei sicrhau

£10

Materials for workshops

£20

Contribute to fees for workshops for the LGBTQ+ community

£500

A bursary payment for an emergent artist

Codi arian i ni!