A celebration of cats in art will take place this March.
Festival of Cats 2022 will feature a series of exhibitions, workshops and events in and around Margate.
Artists, makers and creatives are being invited to submit work for the main exhibition, which will take place at The Margate School.
Works can be in any medium, any size, any format as long as there is a feline theme, and there is no fee for submission. Everyone is welcome to apply, there is no age limit – children and adults are welcome.
Festival of Cats is a Margate based festival of art and culture that started in 2018 as a fringe event to Turner Contemporary’s “Journeys with The Waste Land”. While the Turner Contemporary exhibition focused on T.S.Eliot’s seminal work – The Waste Land – Festival of Cats sought to bring attention to one of Eliot’s other famous and popular works – Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. Much like the book, the festival celebrates the psychology, sociology and whimsy of cats.
The 2022 festival, which will run from March 24 – 28, will have a series of events across Margate and is open to everyone in the community. Following on from the success of the first festival in 2018, festival creators, Jemma Channing and Helen Pitman, decided to run a biennial event. Sadly in 2020 the event could not go ahead due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Jemma and I, independently, came up with the idea and joined forces for the first Festival of Cats in 2018. We thought it would be a fun way of recognising Eliot’s other work and also highlighting the wonder of cats,” said festival co-creator Helen Pitman.
The festival also highlights the work of local artist Louis Wain, who lived in Westgate for many years while producing some of his most loved works.
“In 2018, we were pleasantly surprised that almost 400 people visited the festival and 60 artists participated from all over the UK! After a hard couple of years we want to give people the opportunity to visit, contribute and/or participate again in this fun festival,” said event co-creator Jemma Channing.
For more information and FAQ please visit www.festivalofcats.com or contact [email protected].
Submissions close Friday, February 25.
