Festival celebrating town spirit returns for second edition
The Pride of Place Festival runs for six weeks
The Pride of Place Festival is returning to Malmesbury for its second year.
After a successful first edition, the six-week celebrations kick off with St. Adhelm’s Fayre and the EAT: Malmesbury Food and Drink Event today (24 May).
Organised by the town’s arts development agency Caerbladon, the Pride of Place Festival celebrates the people, culture and history of Malmesbury.
David Drake, chair of the town team and co-director of Caerbladon, told Greatest Hits Radio: “We're residents of the town and we love Malmesbury. We love everything about it. And when we did our first Pride of Place Festival, we wanted to celebrate everything that makes the town special, distinctive and a place where people love to live and work.
“The important thing for us is that we work in partnership with local organisations, so it's really just a celebration of everything that we love about our community.”
Malmesbury is a town with a lot of history, but this year the team behind the festival wanted to make sure that its other aspects would be highlighted as well.
“It has wonderful nature”, Mr Drake said.
“And also the town’s association being a place of sanctuary for centuries, really.
“Malmesbury has been, for centuries, a place of pilgrimage and a place of sanctuary. Whether that was the early Celtic pilgrims right through to the Ukrainian refugees who were hosted by families here in Malmesbury.
“So, Sanctuary is a theme that runs throughout the festival. We're actually creating a Sanctuary Garden and we will have events, exhibitions and creative activities for families around the themes of nature and sanctuary.”
Leaning on the theme of ‘Sanctuary’, organisers have invited Iranian artist Majid Adin for Refugee Week.
A refugee himself, Adin has worked with British singer Elton John who commissioned him to create the animations for his ‘Rocket Man’ music video.
Adin will be running different workshops during his five days in Malmesbury.
Other highlights include the Dawn Sketching Session on Midsummer’s Day, the Landscape Artist of the Year Award and the Ukrainian summer solstice celebration Ivana Kupala.
“The people of Malmesbury really love a live event. So, the sort of more celebratory events, like for example, the EAT: Malmesbury Food and Drink Event which will take over the whole of the town centre is something that people always look forward to, but I think also some of the things like the landscape artist event or the nature walks”, Mr Drake added.
“There's lots of things that people can join. And as always, there are concerts and exhibitions and celebrations around the town.”
The festival finishes on National Meadows Day on the 6th of July.