“Our art brought people from the Mendip villages together”

With thanks to a grant from the Mendip Hills Fund, over 600 school children and villagers from across the Mendip Hills embraced their creativity through a series of sculpture-led workshops.

Soap Soup Arts, founded by Creative Producer Tomasin Cuthbert, was awarded a £2000 grant from the Mendip Hills Fund which enabled her to gather young artists to work together on a huge art installation project which was unveiled at the Winscombe Festival earlier this year.

Tomasin worked with fellow artist, Fiona Campbell, to inspire school children from Banwell Primary School, Sandford Primary School, Winscombe Primary School, Axbridge Academy and Churchill Academy to get creative. “Climate change puts people in a state of freeze” says Tomasin “and so we wanted the children to get excited about the natural world, to think about supporting biodiversity and to think about how they can have a lighter tread in the world.”

“We shared a series of different art techniques with the children and encouraged the young artists to ‘make their own creative journeys across the Mendip Hills’” said Tomasin “We invited them to think about how we interact with the landscape – both positively and negatively – and then use their creativity to make an impact through the unveiling of their very own public art.”

The budding young artists upcycled bags of fabric and through the use of various artistic mediums created a series of mini sculptures. “Pupils were sewing, drawing, working with metal, and embellishing fabric with beads… and, through their artistry, they created flowers and insects which then in turn became the architecture for the larger festival sculptures. The arts are essential for human health – engaging regularly with the arts has been proven to support good recovery and health outcomes as well as future proofing us against poor mental health and age-related neurological problems.”

“Without the funding, the beating heart of the festival wouldn’t have been there”

Tomasin Cuthbert

The theme of the artwork was titled ‘Communities in the Landscape’ and in turn created a talking point at the festival for the visitors, “It’s so important to get everyone talking about art – as well as climate change. Provision of the creative arts is so minimal – it isn’t valued culturally or politically -which is so troubling” says Tomasin “but our project enabled the children to see their work being presented both outside as an installation and also inside in a gallery setting. It was so important for the local villagers to see it and for everyone to engage with it.”

Jim Hardcastle, manager of the National Landscape who run the Mendip Hills Fund, said, “National Landscapes are not just about looking after the view or helping nature recover. These are living landscapes. It’s important that the Mendip Hills Fund is able to support the cultural heritage of communities. Small grants, which are easy to apply for, can mean a lot to a community.”

“Without the grant funding from the Mendip Hills Fund the beating heart of the festival wouldn’t have been there,” says Tomasin. “Our art brought people together across the Mendip villages and together we connected five schools through art and made a positive change.”

You can find out more about Soap Soup Arts at soapsouparts.com

If you are a community group based in the Mendip Hills National Landscape and would like to discuss funding for a community project visit: mendiphills-nl.org.uk/caring/mendip-hills-fund

The Mendip Hills Fund works in partnership with the Somerset Community Foundation