Fun Palaces
Fun Palaces is both an ongoing campaign for culture at the heart of every community – led by and for that community, and an annual weekend of action – arts, science, craft, tech, digital, heritage and sports events and activities – run by and for local communities. Fun Palaces weekend is the first weekend of October every year. The next Fun Palaces weekend is 5th and 6th October 2019.
Here in Athens, we hosted the first-ever Fun Palace with Victoria Square Project in Victoria Square in Athens. We worked closely with the synAthina team of the City of Athens to create a community day like no other.
Fun Palaces is an ongoing campaign for cultural democracy, launched in the UK a few years back, with an annual weekend of action every October. The campaign promotes culture at the heart of the community and community at the heart of culture. Victoria Square Project is now bringing the event to Athens for the first time ever!
In the early 1960s, Joan Littlewood and architect Cedric Price in the UK conceived the original, never-built Fun Palace as a ‘laboratory of fun’ and ‘a university of the streets’. It was to be a local building, home to the arts and sciences, open and welcoming to all.
The concept of a space welcoming and open to all, led by and for local people, is a GREAT idea and since 2013 Fun Palaces have developed the weekend of action and the ongoing campaign now known as Fun Palaces, supporting communities across the world to create their own events, community-led and locally based, sharing the skills and passions of the people of that community.
The weekend of action uses the combination of arts, craft, science, tech, digital, heritage and sports activities, led by local people for local people, sharing their own passions and skills, as a catalyst for community-led transformation, with active participation for all ages.
Project website
Dates
2019
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