Radical Panda Games
(an afternoon of ferocious fun and buns)
Wednesday 3 Nov, 2-4pm
at One Thoresby Street (Artists' Studios), Nottingham
An Axis event organised as part of the engage/enquire International Conference 2010,
'The art of influencing change', Nottingham, 3-5 Nov
Artist Jonnet Middleton hosted this very special ‘retro high tea’ which showed that activism could be a very civilised affair and that with a twitterwall and a teacake we can all affect change.
Involving 100 knitted pandas, panda cheerleaders, hashtag bingo and speedtweeting, the Radical Panda Games was for everyone from technophobes to the twitter-savvy. We played indoor team games with an ‘artistic twist’ and demonstrated how sharing and play could provoke and unite people.
Jonnet Middleton is a UK artist whose witty and accessible practice examines the capacity of social media and ‘craftivism’ in engaging communities. Her lifelong fascination with pandas inspired her to start the Unitypanda project in which 500 panda-knitters knitted over 100 cuddly pandas. These co-created creatures are destined to be flown on a 1940s bi-plane to China, and received by the Chinese Ambassador in an official act of panda diplomacy.
This was an artist-performance event commissioned by Axis which invited participation in the friendliest, most inspiring, and most calorific way possible.
www.engage.org/conference
www.facebook.com/unitypanda
www.onethoresbystreet.org
