The Festival’s historical roots are in an event called Church Clypping, which takes place at the town’s St Mary’s Church (founded in 653) on the Sunday following the Festival of the Blessed Virgin Mary on 8 September. This ancient ceremony, which sees the congregation join hands in thanksgiving to completely encircle the Church, continues as a Festival event today.

The Festival’s current form dates from 1995, when a group of local artists opened their own homes to display their work, and this part of the Festival has now become one of the Festival’s highlights, the highly successful Art and Architecture Trail.  Today’s Festival encompasses a broad-ranging programme of visual arts and performance spanning 17 days, over three weekends annually in September. 

CONTEXT

Rural but Central Location

Wirksworth Festival is unusual in having a dual focus on Art & Architecture in a non-urban setting. This arises from its history (growing from the desire of Wirksworth’s artists to show their work in their own and friends’ houses - ‘The Art & Architecture Trail’)  and geography (its proximity to Derby, Nottingham, Sheffield, Manchester and the West Midlands) which attracts many graduates, creating an important first professional showcase of their work post-graduation, and ideally placing us to work with the region’s higher education providers. 

Creative Hub

The Festival  is a direct result of the creative energies and ambitions of the town, home to many  talented companies and individuals. Wirksworth has an unusually large creative community, for a rural location - 5% of its population, or 8.8% of its workforce, is employed in the creative industries. The Festival supports the development of this community as a fundamental part of the economic life of the town. Increasingly a new generation, a new creative workforce, have grown up with the Festival and are now making their mark upon it.

Exceptional Built Environment

Wirksworth is an architecturally interesting town, with significant buildings from every historical period. Within Wirksworth Conservation Area are 991 buildings, of which 90 are listed. The town has an organic and apparently random accretion of historical layers, each of which is simultaneously present.

Lack of Provision

Wirksworth has no gallery or theatre and makes a virtue of this by invading and infiltrating the distinctive spaces that it has - public spaces indoor and out, domestic venues, unused industrial buildings, churches, shops, pubs and other non-art spaces - so that contemporary art can be experienced in unusual and unlikely settings without the potentially intimidating aura of the major gallery. This innovative approach provides an important opportunity for a predominantly rural community to experience high quality contemporary visual art . There is a lack of provision in Derbyshire, and especially rural Derbyshire, for contemporary art (Made Visible Report 2007).

These unique circumstances both drive and inspire our programme