ARTISTS OPEN HOUSES: Festival of Dreams!

This May the Artists Open Houses (AOH) festival runs for five weekends, starting on Bank Holiday Saturday 30th April and closing on Bank Holiday Monday 30th May. The 2016 Open Houses festival is bigger and better than ever, with almost 200 venues stretching across the city, from Portslade to Rottingdean and out into the villages of Ditchling, South Heighton, Hamsey and beyond. The Open Houses Festival is inclusive to all, having something for everyone and this May includes five schools, several churches and a number of wellbeing and day-centres, as well as well over 100 artists’ homes and studios.
Sixty new venues are taking part the this year, including Dreamliner Arts, an immersive mini cinema and pop-up gallery inside a Talbot motor home, parked up in a street near Brighton station and a Kemptown house with an interactive art installation, involving electrician’s tape!
As well as painting, jewellery, textiles, ceramics, photography, installation and much, much more, many houses offer hands-on workshops and activities to inspire your creativity – both for adults and for kids. Others offer very tempting homemade tea and cake!
Throughout the festival, Artists Open Houses Headline Sponsors, ARCH-angels Architects, are offering a children’s ‘Design Your Dream Home’ competition, to help get kids motivated to travel the trails with you. The competition encourages kids to bring their ideas together and create a Dream Home, via any medium they choose. Look out for the purple AaA dots beside one house in each trail in the AOH brochure. Children can use any method, drawing, painting, model making or photography to bring their Dream Home to life, with entries welcomed from children aged between 4 and 16. Two lucky winners will be awarded a Lego Building Set or a Lego Architecture Set.
And don’t forget to vote for your favourite Open House! The Best Open House Award is supported by Artists Open Houses’ media partners, Latest Homes and TV. From the start of the festival, visit the Open Houses then simply place an online vote (via the AOH website) for the house that you believe best captures the spirit of the Artists Open Houses – deadline for voting: Monday 23rd May.
Look out for Artists Open Houses brochures around the city – or visit the Four Festivals’ info desk at Brighton Station every weekend from now until the end of the festival. Or pick up a brochure from any Open House venue from the start of the festival.
For more information visit: www.aoh.org.uk