A report on Inside Croydon has prompted the council and Fairfield Halls to agree a new home for a symbolic piece of art, and arrangements to move Hale Man’s Phoenix Rising next year get under way with the first meeting of the Friends of the Phoenix next Wednesday, September 30.

Hale Man’s Phoenix: symbolic of Croydon post-2011

The Friends of the Phoenix is a new group, formed to help create an arts festival through the streets of the town centre next February, when artist Hale Man’s phoenix sculpture is moved from her workshop in the Whitgift Centre to the Fairfield Halls.

“We are a group of people, who would like to use the parade and installation of Hale Man’s Sculpture Phoenix Rising as a catalyst to engage more people with the arts in Croydon,” they say.

“The group aims to promote and support local artists by giving them more recognition and scope to display their work. We are planning to organise a parade of the Phoenix through the streets of Croydon, engaging as many people in the parade and arts festival as possible.”

The organisers are looking for people who are willing to help with the following:

• To join the Parade on the day – proposed date February 6, 2016, starting from Whitgift Centre and finishing at the Fairfield Hall.
• Publicise our forthcoming Crowdfunding Project on Spacehive.
• Work with other art groups so that the Parade and Installation are used to promote the arts to as wide a range of people as possible.
• Organise volunteers and a route for the Parade and liaise with the council and police.
• Explore ways, in which the event can be built on so that Croydon artists and the arts are more fully represented within Croydon.
• Explore ways of linking this celebration of the visual arts with other different art forms.

“This promises to be an ambitious and exciting project, and we would like to involve as many different people from the different communities of Croydon as possible.”

• The meeting will take place in the upstairs room of the Spread Eagle Pub from 7.30pm on September 30. To attend, please email friends.of.the.phoenix1516@gmail.com or text 0774 0165987

• Inside Croydon Events: for dates and links to what’s happening in and around Croydon, updated daily, click here

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