VERBA Art Commission For Tapton Lock Festival
VERBA Art Commission For Tapton Lock Festival
Junction Arts is proud to announce a new creative collaboration with VERBA, the Ukrainian Social Group of Chesterfield, to deliver a unique eco-inspired art experience for this year’s Tapton Lock Festival.
Titled Eco-Path – A Living Journey, the project invites families to embark on an artistic adventure through a series of interactive stations, collecting stamps in a specially designed Eco Passport as they explore key themes in environmental sustainability. The initiative blends ecology, art, and community participation to inspire deeper connections with nature and more sustainable ways of living.
Commissioned especially for the festival, Eco-Path – A Living Journey features six themed creative stations focused on: climate habits and awareness, reuse and recycling, biodiversity and soil care, sustainable fashion and textile waste, nature through a child’s eyes and ecological storytelling and microplastics and pollution
Families will be invited to take part in hands-on crafts and artistic activities such as making musical instruments from recycled materials, map-making, seed bomb creation, junk modelling, illustration, and textile work. Participants will receive stamps in their passports at each stop, encouraging a sense of journey, reflection, and environmental action.
Visitors are also encouraged to bring unwanted recycling materials with them, including plastic bottles, bottle lids, clean yoghurt pots, cans and boxes, which can be used in the artworks.
The Eco Passport and station activities have been co-designed by members of VERBA with leadership from artist, VERBA member, and Junction Arts volunteer Nadia Ishchuk.
“Tapton Lock is all about community and appreciating nature and the outdoors, so this latest project with VERBA is a perfect fit,” said Rachel Pedley, Project Coordinator at Junction Arts. “The Ukrainian community in Chesterfield has come together to help bring these activities to life, using mostly upcycled and recycled materials to share important messages about sustainability in a fun, creative way. We can’t wait to see families enjoying the journey and collecting their passport stamps!”
Nadia Ishchuk, who has played a key role in developing the activities, added: “We are looking forward to turning yesterday’s rubbish into tomorrow’s masterpieces, with the help of Chesterfield’s families at this amazing free event where people can try their hand at lots of creative activities.”
Now in its 13th year, the Tapton Lock Festival returns on 6th and 7th September 2025 along the Chesterfield Canal, near the Tapton Lock Visitor Centre on Lockoford Lane. This year, the free two-day event is teaming up with Arts Derbyshire’s Festivity – a touring programme bringing more arts and culture to Derbyshire communities.
Festival-goers can look forward to a vibrant weekend of live music, spoken word and poetry, storytelling, arts and crafts workshops, as well as classic favourites including have-a-go canoes, climbing wall, circus skills, vintage fairground rides, and boat trips.