I always find it a bit odd when people say ‘Did you have a good break after the Fun Palaces weekend?’ because that’s when we get even busier – this year we were all back in the office on the Monday to get on with follow-up, feedback, evaluation, (and funding bids so we can keep going next year) as well as the Fun Palaces film.

Fun Palaces are about a lot of things, they’re about community and engagement and participation, they’re about each of us finding a way to contribute in our own way, they’re about paying attention to where we live and who we live alongside, they’re about claiming – or reclaiming – public space, public buildings, public organisations, for the public.

Arts and sciences – culture in its widest form – are the catalyst for all this work, helping us find a way to work together, to question together, to not just be in community, but to BE community.

And the Fun Palaces Makers are the heart of this work. They are the ones who join in from their community, make Fun Palaces in their workplaces or playspaces (arts or sciences, both or neither), make the effort to make a difference, to create an ongoing difference that is about all of us owning culture and cultural access.
Here are 36 of this year’s Fun Palaces Makers, from 22 different Fun Palaces, talking about how it was for them …

Makers grid