Communities Get BUZZING! Sherelle Fairweather Manchester
The Manchester Bee Parade is a collaborative, community Yarn Bomb celebrating Manchester’s Northern Quarter’s textile heritage and craft tradition. Yarn Bombing is a type of street art that
Bees getting crafty in
displays colourful knitted or crocheted yarn, which
Fred Aldous craft store.
is exactly what the bees did! The seed for this project was planted by Purl City Yarns during discussions over a potential community lamppost yarn bombing event. The event was intended to improve communication between organisations
Colourful community bee making materials!
and residents whilst encouraging and re-igniting the celebration of crafts amongst areas of the community ‘not in the know’.
This project was developed over the summer and through more
Bees Buzzing in one of Northern Quarters cafes
listenings the need for this creative community project, as well as support for it, was collectively voiced. The first hurdle was a lack of permission from the authorities to use the lampposts, which meant getting all shared voices together to think creatively and continue to move the project into action. This led to the organisation of a bee themed crafty trail. At the end of the trail lay kitted, crotched and pom pom bees which
Flyer to advertise workshops
had been made in free workshops led by community members and hosted by organisations in the Northern Quarter. The workshops ran for just over a month and the bees were displayed with barcodes which took participants to the website to find out more. The bees swarmed across the community in the windows of those who hosted the workshops. The worker bee is the most recognisable symbol of Manchester and has been used as a symbol for the city since 1842. The image harks back to the city’s industrial heritage and represents the social benefits of being well connected within a community and working together to create something for the greater good of the ‘hive’, which is exactly what the project showed!