Award Winning Creativity: Inspire Libraries wins at The Big Draw Festival Awards 2022-2023

Published 6th November 2024

Inspire Libraries, Nottinghamshire has received the Community, Participatory and Libraries Award at the latest Big Draw Festival Awards for 2022-2023, making this the third consecutive win in a row for the organisation!

The Big Draw Festival Awards annually honour drawing and creativity on a global scale by presenting seven awards to organisations, individuals, and schools that showcase the significant impact of drawing as a means of communication, innovation, and inclusivity during The World's Biggest Drawing Festival.

Iluustration with a trophy and a pink background

For The Big Draw 2022: Come Back to Colour, Inspire partnered with ABL Health and Arc Partnership to deliver a creative approach that supported the health and wellbeing of children, young people and families across Nottinghamshire. The 2022 theme invited us to rediscover ourselves, our health, bodies and vitality through colour and community. Inspire worked with internationally renowned Japanese dance artist Takeshi Matsumoto, who designed an energetic and inclusive workshop where 384 pupils from Mansfield Primary Schools and local family audiences created community artwork together. Through movement, dance, and mark-making, they drew outlines of the human form which evolved from figurative, to abstract, to imaginative. Our groups’ colourful marks and line drawings contributed to a collaborative artwork that went on to tour Inspire libraries between 2022 and 2023. Every Inspire Library in Nottinghamshire joined in with the collaboration and gave away a 'How To' activity sheet so even more families could take part in their library or at home.

We love being part of The Big Draw and using the power of drawing for engagement with groups and families in our library spaces. Working with Takeshi in 2022 was a masterclass in the use of whole-body movement in collaboration and inclusivity to generate artworks that radiated happiness.

Helen Ackroyd, Libraries and Culture Manager at Inspire

We thank our partners at Arc Partnership and ABL Health for their collaboration and continued support of Inspire.

Further information about The Big Draw 2022: Come Back to Colour and dance artist Takeshi Matsumoto can be found on the Inspire website:

The Big Draw 2022: Come Back to Colour | Inspire - Culture, Learning, Libraries

Visitors can find out more about Inspire's latest project for The Big Draw 2023: Time to Connect on our website: The Big Draw 2023: Time to Connect | Inspire - Culture, Learning, Libraries

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