Stories Grow Here: Summer 2026 Celebration Event
- 5 days ago
- 9 min read
Updated: 23 hours ago
ARTIST TALKS | FILM PREMIERE | CREATIVE WORKSHOPS | LIVE MUSIC | FOOD
Friday 4 September 2026
11am - 5pm, followed by Fhungus Friday live music gig (6pm onwards)
Doncaster Unitarian & Free Christian Church, 60a Hall Gate, Doncaster, DN1 3PB
FREE ENTRY (Pay As You Feel donations welcome)
Spaces are limited, please email admin@artbombuk.com to reserve your spot!
On Friday 4th September, ArtBomb warmly welcomes you to Stories Grow Here, an all-day celebratory event looking back at a wonderful Summer 2026 at ArtBomb and looking forward to what's next!
Through artist talks, creative workshops, live music, food and the premiere of Darshan Gajjar's short documentary film, ArtBomb invites artists and local residents to explore questions of belonging, home, movement, access and art as intervention in public space.
The day will be facilitated by Olamide Olaniyan (aka Olamide Sax), a Nigerian-born saxophonist and creative practitioner who has been collaborating with ArtBomb and local bands such as The Skintones since early 2026. Through music-making, Olamide will help shape the rhythm and energy of the day.
From Olamide Sax’s Better Rhythm drum circle session and Fiona Cahill’s handmade paper workshop, to Squiggle Gang’s collaborative mural-making, Creative Push’s screen-printing and Terry Hudson’s Little Anarchist Bookshop, the programme creates opportunities to make, listen, play and share.
Alongside these hands-on activities, Mark Farid’s artist talk, Tinta Ali’s philosophical discussion on the intersection of migration and homelessness, Jack Clarke and Ciara O’Rourke’s exploration of housing and exclusion, and the premiere of Darshan Gajjar’s My Home in Doncaster invite us to examine the structures that shape our communities—and imagine how they might be changed.
This all-day event is an early celebration of the ongoing redevelopment of ArtBomb and Doncaster Unitarian's courtyard area into a creative, open air third space hiding in plain sight on Hall Gate, Doncaster city-centre.
Stories Grow Here offers the courtyard as fertile ground— a place to sow new ideas, where different perspectives can grow alongside one another and to see what kind of positive social impact can take root when creativity is given room to grow.
At 5pm, the day moves from making and discussion to music, with Jackhno and Fhungus Friday carrying the programme into the evening.
EVENT SCHEDULE: AT A GLANCE
11.00 | Arrival time |
11.30 | Welcome & Introduction |
11.40 | Mark Farid | GUEST ARTIST TALK |
12:10 | Reflecting on The Anti-Social Housing Agency (Arts & Homelessness commission) with Jack Clarke & Ciara O'Rourke | RESIDENCY ARTIST SHARING |
12.30 | Bless the People Who Live in this House | FILM SCREENING + GUEST PHILOSOPHER |
13.05 | Lunch - Pay As You Feel communal meal by Paula Lockey (V) |
14.00 | Fiona Cahill | AUTOCARTOGRAPHY PAPERMAKING WORKSHOP Olamide Olanayan | BETTER RHYTHM DRUM CIRCLE |
15.00 | My Home in Doncaster (Rethinking Migration commission) FILM PREMIERE + Q&A |
15.40 | Squiggle Gang | MURAL DISCUSSION |
16.00 | Squiggle Gang | STREET ART DRAWING WORKSHOP Terry Hudson | LITTLE ANARCHIST BOOKSHOP & ZINE-MAKING Creative Push – Print It Live | SCREENPRINTING WORKSHOP |
17.00 | Stories Grow Here event finishes |
Jackhno live electronic set in courtyard | |
18.00 | Fhungus Friday | GIG |
MEET THE ARTISTS
Mark Farid
GUEST SPEAKER
@morkforid
Mark Farid is an artist and Senior Lecturer in Fine Art at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London, and a PhD candidate at the Creative Computing Institute. His practice explores the intersection between the virtual and physical worlds, examining how new technologies shape individuals’ sense of self and collective perception. Farid’s work draws on hacker ethics and focuses on privacy policies, surveillance
technologies, and advocacy for data
privacy and protection.
Collectively, his projects form a critique of contemporary social, legal, and political structures.
At a Crossroads: Urban Walk in Doncaster with Mark Farid & Doncaster Ramblers
What does the act of crossing the road reveal about how we are governed? At a Crossroads, a new project by artist Mark Farid, treats pedestrian crossings as sites where the state, governance and the body collide, and follows how obedience becomes so habitual it no longer looks like obedience at all. The project began this year at the British School at Rome, filming crossings in eight cities across seven countries, and its English phase, supported by Arts Council England, now comes to Doncaster.
On Thursday 3rd September, a circular walk moves from rural edge ground into the town centre. Led by David Gadd of Doncaster Ramblers with artist Mark Farid and Urban Sociologist Louise Rondel co-leading, the walk traces how control is embedded in the ground we move through: access rights and private land, fencing, signage, road design and the pedestrian crossing.
The event is a circular walk of around six miles at a leisurely pace, starting at 10am from Hexthorpe Flatts, 209 Urban Road, Doncaster DN4 0HH. Around midday the walk pauses at ArtBomb, 60 Hallgate, for food and a partly recorded group discussion of around an hour and a half, before the return leg to Hexthorpe Flatts. The event finishes by mid-afternoon.
The walk pauses at ArtBomb for food and a debrief, a group conversation about what everyone noticed, then loops back to where it began. The walk is free and places are limited.
Meeting Point: Hexthorpe Flatts, 209 Urban Road, Doncaster DN4 0HH
Date: Thursday 3rd September 2026
Time: 11am start | Finishes mid-afternoon
Distance: Approx. 6 miles | Leisurely pace
Lunch provided. Please dress appropriately depending on the weather, wear suitable footwear, and bring a bottle of water to stay hydrated.
On Friday 4th September, ArtBomb proudly presents Mark as our keynote speaker for Stories Grow Here. Mark will dive into his digital art practice, his early research into At a Crossroads and pose questions around the social impact of contemporary art in the public realm.
Olamide Phillips Olaniyan (aka Olamide Sax)
HOST & MUSIC WORKSHOP FACILITATOR
Olamide Phillips Olaniyan is a Nigerian-born, Doncaster-based Afro-fusion artist, multi-instrumentalist, participatory artist and creative facilitator. He has ten years and more of live performance, blending saxophone, Yoruba percussion, piano, vocals and storytelling.
On Friday 4th September, Olamide will debut Better Rhythm, a participatory creative wellbeing session that uses African drumming, saxophone, voice, movement and cultural storytelling to bring people together through rhythm, creativity and shared experience. Drawing from Yoruba musical heritage and creative health practice, the session explores how rhythm can support wellbeing, confidence, connection and cultural exchange.
Olamide also features in the My Home in Doncaster short film by Darshan Gajjar, discussing his story of moving to Doncaster and the role played by music to bring communities together.
Ciara O'Rourke & Jack Clarke
RESIDENCY ARTIST SHARING
@clarkeofsalford
@ciara_lil_makes_things
Jack Clarke & Ciara O'Rourke are the artist duo behind The Anti-Social Housing Agency, a satirical furniture showroom-cum-housing agency designed in response to ArtBomb's Arts & Homelessness commission.
The project uses the visual language of housing offices, furnished tenancies, hostile architecture, waiting rooms, domestic interiors and showrooms to provoke discussion around the systems that shape who gets to feel safe, who gets pushed out, and who is quietly designed against.
Through this, The Anti-Social Housing Agency looks at hostile architecture, social housing, rough sleeping, temporary accommodation, furniture poverty and the everyday ways public and private spaces can isolate, exclude or control people.
On Friday 4th September, Jack and Ciara break down the process of creating The Anti-Social Housing Agency, their partnerships with local housing and social care charities, the conversations they've had with Doncaster residents, the conclusions they've reached, and probably more importantly, the questions the project has left them with.
Tinta Ali
GUEST PHILOSOPHER
Tinta Ali is a philosopher, community advocate and Partnership and Engagement Coordinator at ARC (Asylum & Refugee Community) Blackburn.
Born in the Ivory Coast, he came to the UK seeking asylum after fleeing persecution during the country’s civil war in 2010.
Drawing on more than 12 years in the non-profit sector and his own lived experience, Tinta
speaks powerfully about migration, belonging, identity, community and what it means to build a life somewhere new. He appears in Bless The People Who Live in This House, reflecting on these questions through his own experiences and wider philosophy of home, dignity and human connection.
On Friday 4th September, Tinta offers a philosophical reflection on the intersection of migration and homelessness, the anti-immigration rhetoric embedded in the far right's response to the UK housing crisis, initiating an open conversation about where ArtBomb's Rethinking MIgration and Arts & Homelessness commissions meet.
Darshan Gajjar
RESIDENCY ARTIST FILM PREMIERE
@darshangajjar
On Friday 4th September, ArtBomb is delighted to premier My Home in Doncaster, a short documentary film created by Sheffield-based filmmaker, Darshan Gajjar, in response to ArtBomb's Rethinking Migration commission.
Created in collaboration with CAST, My Home in Doncaster is not your typical documentary. Darshan invited members of the public who call Doncaster home to sit down, grab a cup of tea, and have an informal chat about their lives, experiences, and what home
means to them, from a constructed living
room on Hall Gate.
The project explores how we can humanise one another beyond labels. By bringing together voices from migrant and non-migrant backgrounds, we wanted to create space for honest conversations and show that while our experiences may be different, we often have far more in common than we realise.
Many thanks to Nicola Doyle of CAST, Sharon Wilson from Changing Lives and Mary Macmillan of Citizens Advice Doncaster Borough for their support throughout both the Rethinking Migration and Arts & Homelessness projects.
Fiona Cahill
@elysiandaisies
Fiona Cahill is an artist, activist and carer living in South Yorkshire. From a line of Irish single mothers her work explores institutional abuse, politics, grief and the power of the natural world to overcome separation and containment. Having presented her first exhibition, Rendition, at ArtBomb Fiona is currently touring her own solo show and her work can be seen now in The National Museum of Ireland in the ‘Changing Ireland’ gallery.
On Friday 4th September, Fiona will host an introductory session to autocartography - an artistic framework used to map one's heritage and psychological or cultural geography - through papermaking.
Using organic materials found in the courtyard such as leaves, bark, soils & flowers, Fiona will show you how to make your own paper from homemade paper pulp, curly cress seeds, nettle twine and a sewing needle.
Squiggle Gang
@squiggle.gang
Join Doncaster-based street artist collective Squiggle Gang to hear the story behind their work in progress mural, a brand new public artwork commissioned by ArtBomb & Doncaster Unitarian church as part of the redevelopment of the courtyard into an open air creative space in the heart of Doncaster.
We want ArtBomb & Doncaster Unitarian's shared courtyard space to flourish into a lively hub for street art. We have near-future plans to commission more large-scale murals and to launch a legal spraypainting wall to present new work by emerging street artists.
At our Stories Grow Here event, we're inviting members of the public to have a say in the types of street art we might commission next.
Take inspiration from the nature, art and community of the courtyard to draw your own mural designs!
Squiggle Gang will be on hand to provide tips & tricks. Posca pens, paper & other drawing materials will be provided.
Creative Push CIC
@creativepushcic
Join Chris Perkins of Creative Push CIC for a hands-on screen-printing experience.
Bring your own T-shirt, tote bag or fabric item, or pick up a tote bag on the day, and create a one-of-a-kind print to take home. Come and meet the team and find out how we’re making creativity accessible for everyone through inclusive workshops and community projects.
Jackhno
@jackhno_dancepunk
Jackhno (Jen Rozenfelds) is an electronic musician and eco-socialist who plays live alternative dance music with a punky attitude. Jen is also the organiser of Doncaster's EMOM events (Electronic Music Open Mic).
Jackhno will be taking us into the early evening with a warm-up set in the courtyard, before doors open for the Fhungus Friday gig at 6pm.
Sample the origianl sounds of Jackhno on YouTube
Fhungus Friday Gig
@motherfhungusevents
Fhungus Friday, a monthly music gig featuring a vibrant line up of local bands, is brought to you by Mother Fhungus - a Doncaster collective using DIY music to highlight positive shifts, ideas and alternatives in and outside our local community.
Find event updates & ticket links on the Mother Fhungus Events Linktree.
Tickets will also be available to buy on the door!
WHAT TO EXPECT
As with all of ArtBomb's programming, we want to make this event as accessible and inclusive as possible. Please email jennie@artbomb.uk.com if there's a way we can make this event more accessible for you.
The event is entirely free, including a buffet-style vegetarian lunch and drinks served throughout the day.
Some activities are pay what you feel. Any donations made will be used to support ArtBomb in growing its creative community here in the heart of Doncaster.
We're expecting around 80-100 guests to be joining us for Beyond the Scroll.
There will be 2 dedicated quiet zones: one on the ground floor of the church and upstairs in the ArtBomb building, where there are comfortable couches and chairs. There are also benches and chairs in our outdoor courtyard area.
Team members supporting the running of the event will be wearing coloured lanyards or badges. They will be on hand to offer support throughout the day.
GETTING HERE
ArtBomb is located at 60 Hall Gate, Doncaster city-centre: a 10 minute walk from the train station.
Please note that there is no on-site parking. The nearest car park is NCP Doncaster, 1 Frances St, Doncaster, DN1 1JD.
If you have any questions about the event, please email admin@artbombuk.com
Looking forward to see you there!
Event curated by Jennie Gilman & Mikes Stubbs
