Cultural Work Experience

Carnival Design & Making

Urban Wilderness CIC delivered a work experience programme for Year 10 GCSE Art students from Co-op Academy Stoke-on-Trent, offering insight into how a community arts organisation works and how large-scale props and costumes are created for public events.

Across a series of workshop days split between school and The Moony Club in Longton, students learned about the creative, practical and collaborative processes behind Urban Wilderness’s annual Pig Walk Parade and Longton Carnival. They explored carnival-making techniques, worked with materials at scale, and gained experience using a professional studio environment.

Students were set a live brief: to design a simple, family-friendly mask that could be made and worn by participants in the Pig Walk Parade. They developed prototypes, refined designs, and produced clear ‘how-to’ instructions, which were printed and shared online ahead of the event.

On the day of the parade, the students’ designs inspired an artist-led public workshop, empowering families and young people to use accessible materials to create something magical, personal and celebratory to wear in the procession.

The programme supported creative confidence, teamwork and practical problem-solving, while offering a meaningful route into understanding careers in the arts.

This work experience opportunity was funded by PICL (Partners in Creative Learning) as part of their mission to make creative careers more accessible to young people in Stoke-on-Trent, and supported by Arts Council funding for Urban Wilderness CIC’s Pig Walk Parade.