Waterbeach’s favourite arts festival, Summer at the Beach, is back again this year, a bit later than usual. This year’s event will be held from 10am to 5pm during the first three weekends in September (2/3, 9/10 and 16/17 September 2023) in the ‘Terraces’ space of the former Waterbeach Barracks – used by the military as hangars for fire trucks in the 1940s and then as a storage and vehicle maintenance area.
Summer at the Beach celebrates local artistic and creative talent, with this year’s exhibition showcasing ceramicists, milliners, textile artists, painters, photographers, filmmakers, sculptors, installation artists and printmakers.
This year’s event will also feature a new audio art venture in one of the terrace units on 9 and 10 September. Experimental electronic artists from Sound Lab 103 will be interacting with the industrial architecture to create live and interactive sound installations that respond to the building, its history, and the inherent sonic properties of the space.
Alongside the art exhibition, Summer at the Beach will also be staging a range of cultural and creative events for all ages and interests, including:
- 3 September: Poetry Workshops exploring connections between visual arts and poetry. For children aged 8+, accompanied by a parent or adult carer.
- 11.30am-12.30pm: Workshop 1: ‘Poetry as Wearable Art’ – an opportunity to play with words, create and illustrate your own poems on textiles, and become performance artists among the works on display. You will need to take an old, pale coloured t-shirt or shirt to write on.
- 2:30-3:30pm: Workshop 2: ‘Voluminous Vocabulary’ – participants will be encouraged to observe closely, make imaginative word choices, and work collaboratively to write their own poems inspired by Summer at the Beach.
- 10 September: Printmaking and Clay Modelling Workshops – drop in throughout the day to see what you can create.
- 7-10pm on 16 September: Ceilidh Night – dancing, good music and great company!
Tickets £3.50 per person, available from EventBrite.
2pm onwards on 17 September: Closing Party/Music Day
There will also be a Creative Space available throughout the exhibition, with free art materials to encourage budding artists to channel the event’s energy and inspiration to create their own unique pieces of artwork.
The Repair Café will be back by popular demand from 11am-2pm on 9 September. Talented volunteers will be giving a new lease of life to a wide range of damaged and broken products. Last year’s event included household appliances, bikes, musical instruments and a tent!
The Pop-up Café will also be back again this year, serving a range of delicious homemade cakes, snacks and refreshments each weekend during the event.
Gideon Pain, local artist and event coordinator, said:
“We’re delighted to be back at Waterbeach Barracks this September for our Late Summer at the Beach. As well as some old favourites, we have some exciting new talent to showcase as well as lots of events and activities to inspire enthusiastic amateurs and the next generation. We can’t wait!”
Fiona Reardon-Rose from Waterbeach master developer, Urban&Civic, said:
“We’re looking forward to welcoming Summer at the Beach back again this year. The team puts in so much work to transform the Terraces into an amazing backdrop for this event, which is a great showcase for the talent of artists living in the area, as well as a chance to inspire the next generation and get everyone’s creative juices flowing.
“In this transformative year for the former Barracks, as we prepare to welcome the first residents later this year, we’re so pleased to continue to support this important part of the area’s cultural calendar.”
All events and activities are free of charge and on a drop-in basis unless stated otherwise. For detailed descriptions and timings of all events, please visit Summer at the Beach and A Day at the Beach Facebook pages.
We’re delighted to be back at Waterbeach Barracks this September for our Late Summer at the Beach. As well as some old favourites, we have some exciting new talent to showcase as well as lots of events and activities to inspire enthusiastic amateurs and the next generation. We can’t wait!
