Cycle Creations

‘Cycle Creations’ workshop - artwork from recycled bike bits!

This Easter families are invited to get creative at the Rochdale Pioneers Museum and make a cycling themed artwork from recycled bike bits! The free ‘Cycle Creations’ workshop will take place on Friday 11 April and families will have the opportunity to work with kinetic sculptor Richard Dawson. The event is particularly suitable for families with children aged 8-15 years. It is free and families can drop in between 11am and 3pm with no need to book.

Richard Dawson has previously worked with Tameside Cultural Services on their ‘Tatters to Treasure – Junk Sculpture and Art Bikes’ project. This culminated in participants creating bike towed mechanical artworks to form the centerpiece of Tameside’s Winter Wonderland Parade and as stage props for the Cinderella pantomime.

The artworks created during the ‘Cycle Creations’ workshop will form part of a special outdoor artwork to be displayed at the museum on Toad Lane throughout the summer, to coincide with the Tour De France coming through Rochdale Borough. Richard Dawson and staff from the Museum have also been working regularly with young people from Sparth Community Centre to develop the artwork and to gain the Arts Council’s Arts Award qualification.

The Museum’s new temporary exhibition ‘Co-operation on wheels’ will open on 10 May and will run until October. ‘Co-operation on wheels’ will look at how bikes were used by co-operative societies and members and how and why the Co-operative Wholesale Society manufactured bikes. It will also examine co-operatives who sponsor Tour De France teams and will explore how a new wave of co-operatives are keeping the historic links between cycling and co-operation alive.