In May, we saw the streets of Chelmsford city centre brighten up once again with this year’s Concrete Canvas Festival. This year, Spark co-created Concrete Canvas Classroom, a street art competition for children and young people to give them the chance to play the role of street artists. 

Sometime last year in conversation with Marc Miller, we were very excited about a potential competition that would form part of the street art festival involving young people. Inspired by the Fourth Plinth Schools Award, we devised a competition that would give participants the chance to not only design, but also paint an Openreach cabinet as part of the competition outcome.  

Fast forward to today, and as you walk down the high street, stop, and look at the Openreach cabinet outside Barclays bank. What a brilliant example this is of giving young people a creative platform in a public space. In the process of selecting the winners and supporting them with painting the cabinet, we were lucky to be joined by Candy Joyce and artist Scotty from Brave Arts.  

“Candy and I were really impressed with all the competition entries we looked through. The ones we chose look fantastic and we think it’s really important that young artists are supported by their community; so it’s great to be able to do that through the Concrete Canvas Festival.” Scotty  

The competition was designed to be flexible and accessible, whether that’s through teachers, parents/carers or youth group leaders. We are pleased to announce that our 2 winners are Soul, (13 years old) and Nithilan (11 years old) who finished painting the cabinet in July with the help of some friends, teachers, and parents, guided by Candy:

“It was great to join Nithilan and Soul to help them with their first go at street art. Although it turns out, us grown-ups were surplus to requirements as the two young artists and their friends confidently applied their winning designs to the Openreach Cabinet. The cabinet looks amazing, and we clearly have two budding street artists on our hands!”  

It was amazing to see the young people on the day hands on and taking on challenges of scaling up a design they created on A4 paper. They did an excellent job of grappling with ways to tackle uneven surfaces, use a variety of media including spray paint for the first time, and managing time.  

It was an excellent display of teamwork and professionalism, especially being in the spotlight as members of the public would ask questions and give comments. All in all, the young people all had an enjoyable experience. I caught up with one of the teachers, Lucy Beadle, and our two winners:  

LB: It’s so important to get students involved with activities around the community like this, because when you walk through town people see the work and then they start to talk. You often think things are so far away that you can’t make a change but from a younger age, getting them involved and giving them the space to have input is valuable and then you can invite them to more things and so they start making connections. 

We can see from being here today just how many people from the public have stopped and engaged with us. We’ve heard other young people saying they want to do something similar or get involved.  

This opportunity has given our students the chance to really think about careers and see and feel how it would as a practicing artist. It’s also had a positive impact on attendance.   

S: I thought it was a normal art lesson. I drew something and thought it was for a cabinet at school. When I found out I won, I was so excited because I didn’t think I was going to win, but this is mine and I’m going to tell everyone about it.  

I’m excited because this is part of my future career aspirations. I enjoyed spending time with my friend doing what we love, and I’m honoured about having my own wall. Street art is so popular and there should be more competitions like this. I already felt good about myself, but I feel better about myself now. 

N: I feel proud that my design was selected for this competition, and I feel happy that I was able to draw and paint on the high street where people will be able to see my artwork.  

It’s been quite fun and tiring to do so it’s good I had my friends to help me out. This has been an experience because we’re drawing and painting on different things that are not paper, and it gives you a feeling of what street artists do. There should be more competitions.”