Photo: Vika Nightingale
Collabor-8 has been set up by the young arty types of the city in a bid to get the youth them busy creating. Occurring on the last Saturday of every month, the team set up ‘The Space’ as somewhere you can kick back with a beer, or a free mocktail, some biscuits and a bowl of crisps, and get crafty.
We entered The Space to find morph suits galore hanging from the ceiling and worn by the team. All of them were playfully decorated - some girls were walking round with stuffed gloves sprouting from their shoulders which made me giggle. There was a cool chill-out area with comfy beanbags and old school popcorn packets with loads of pens to play with on the tables. All this laced with calming Bonobo beats and huge video projections on the walls.
It only felt right to take a pew in the arts and crafts area, where you could grab some white leggings, a t-shirt or a headband and decorate your chosen item with fabric pens, feathers, and all kinds of crazy materials. I decided to grab myself a headband and draw loads of circles on it, which was quite soothing. Then I turned it into a crown because I am a queen. Queen of the headbands.
There was a spray paint booth too, with lots of people queuing up to use it and get their decoration on. There were some seriously talented people scrawling away at their bits of cloth, it was lovely to see what people were producing – some completely bonkers with rainbows and feather bundles sprouting from every crease, some more stripped-back with beautifully simple illustrations, some with trippy maze patterns. All good stuff.
On top of all this, there were some amateur parkour lads doing flips and jumping over willing candidates which was fun to watch.
The whole thing’s on for about three hours, and I reckon it’s perfect if you fancy doing something before going out that doesn’t involved getting trollied but actually doing something. I look forward to seeing what the team are going to pull out of their hat for the next session.
Collabor-8 happens on the last Saturday of every month at Nottingham Contemporary for free, all materials and snacks are provided. Be sure to check the website first.
Nottingham Contemporary website
We have a favour to ask
LeftLion is Nottingham’s meeting point for information about what’s going on in our city, from the established organisations to the grassroots. We want to keep what we do free to all to access, but increasingly we are relying on revenue from our readers to continue. Can you spare a few quid each month to support us?
