In early 2021 we developed, curated and delivered an exciting and experimental series of high quality creative workshops for Wirral's young people. Horizon was a creative support programme delivered in person over 10 weeks for people aged 14-17.

The programme took the young attendees through a vast mix of contemporary and traditional arts practices led by incredible local art professionals and ended with a public exhibition of the work created.  

Session Leads

Max Mallender

Session: Experimental Painting

Max’s session focused on opening panting up well past the traditional tool kit. Over 2 hours we worked collaboratively on two large-scale painting (4mx4m). Utilising non-traditional tool kits of sponges, squeegees, floor brushed and rollers. This focused on free form creation, graffiti influence and intuitive mark making.  

Joana de Oliveira Guerreiro 

Session: Narrative and storytelling in painting

Session two of Horizons looked at painting in a different format to the previous week, focusing on creative loose narratives/stories and collaboratively bringing the stories to life using paint.  The stories were created using a traditional game, each person would write a line and then fold the page over so it couldn’t be seen, the story was then added to, this process created two hilarious organic stories to work from. 

Dan Chan

Session: Automatic drawing

Dan’s session broke down approaches to fashion, textiles development using automatic drawing as the vehicle to explore texture, shape and form. Dan always begins his process of creating wearable and surface images utilizing drawing, this is the benchmark of his practice and gave the participants the tools and skills to create their own. 



Ellie Brennan

Session: Textiles Banner making

Ellie’s session explored banner making and personal interest. Over the 2 hour we focused on sharing and visually representing our personal interests. This was in a focus to remove any embarrassment from doing and sharing what we love. The outcome of this is a communal banner celebrate everyone diverse interests and hobbies.

Rosa Kusabbi

Session: Screen Printing

Rosa’s session give our young artists the chance to have a go at screen-printing. Screen-printing is the method used a lot in printing processes such as magazines and t-shirt graphics. The theme for this was editorial and we asked the participants to create their own magazine covers using all the tools, skills and tips Rosa provided.

Declan Connolly

Declan’s session explored how Photography can be used to share, lie and fabricate stories. An image says 1000 words but what if the words were made up? After a brief presentation on some interesting photographers and approaches we delved in to creating our own made up stories relating to 100 images Declan took.  We shared our stories that combined unrelated images and text then passed them on to other participants to continue to add and grown our developed narratives. These stories can be read, viewed and added and reinterpreted endlessly.    

Ryla Dilkes

Session: Circular Design

Ryla was the final artist led session in our project. Ryla's session focused on circular design. Circular design is a process in which any object can continually be used and re-used to expand its lifespan after its initial use. Focused on a continued and possible never ending life . This is fantastic approach to sustainable living.  In this 2-hours we learnt all about this process and worked with a giant Meccano like set to create multiple playful designs. These designs focused on utilising balance, gravity and the occasional blot to create some quite astounding builds. 

The Exhibition

We hosted an exhibition of the work at Bloom Building in birkenhead. Showcasing the fantastic work created by the young people with the artists throughout the exhibition.


Horizons was led in partnership by the Open Door Charity and funded by the Baring foundation and in kind support from Finsa. 

This project hosted around 15 young participants who completed the programme and exhibition. The feedback from this programme supported us in the development of our 3rd Horizon programme. 

For more information on programme development and artists session please get in contact

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