EdFringe expands poster comp

Nov 30 2016 | By Thom Dibdin More

Schools winners will inspire programme cover

The fringe has expanded its annual schools poster competition so that three winning designs will be used to inspire three covers of next August’s fringe programme.

The relaunch of the competition is part of the fringe’s build up to its 70th anniversary celebrations and involves the fringe reaching out to schools across Scotland to try and get as many involved as possible.

This year, 395,000 copies of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Programme were printed and distributed across 44 countries around the world.

The competition has been designed so that it can be used to help push forward elements of the school curriculum and the fringe has updated its teaching resources for it.

The resources are in line with latest developments in the Curriculum for Excellence and allow teachers to choose across three different subject areas. There are particular resources for Early Years Drama, Middle Years Art and Design, and Upper Years Literacy.

Shona McCarthy, Chief Executive of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society, said: “The Fringe prides itself on its ability to applaud diversity, promote inclusivity and inspire creativity in those who take part. The Fringe Schools Poster Competition was established with these values at its core, encouraging children to get creative.

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“Next year promises to be a very special year for the Fringe and I am delighted that we will be revealing not just one, but three individual programme covers, inspired by school pupils in Scotland.”

The fringe is promoting the initiative directly to schools, but is also asking pupils and parents to help by asking their schools to get involved.

The upgrading and extra outreach of the competition reflects comments made by McCarthy when she took over the role of chief executive last year. At the time she talked about how the fringe needs to increase its engagement with Edinburgh as a city.

She told Æ: “I am really going to be looking at where the fringe sits within Edinburgh, how it relates to people across the city, how the cultural fabric of the place, and the cultural producers and performers and artists, actually use this beast of a thing to really work for them – or if they don’t.”

In addition to three overall winners in 2017, 14 regional winners will be selected. Their work will be featured in an exhibition of shortlisted entries that will take place at Dynamic Earth in Edinburgh between May and August 2017 before touring to locations around Scotland.

This year’s competition will be judged in three different age categories, Primary 1 – 3, Primary 4 –7, and Senior 1 – 6. Pupils are unrestricted in their creativity; photographs, poems, animations – all forms of expressive arts – will be accepted as potential sources of inspiration. So long as the poster is 2D and size A3.

Prizes are £150 for individuals with the same again in arts and culture vouchers to their schools, and £250 for the top three schools with an extra £250 of vouchers.