SO FESTIVAL: Projects
SO, More than a festival
SO is more than a festival, we also organise projects that run year-round, part of the programme designed to support Lincolnshire’s communities, creatives and cultural organisations.
Read about SO Festival’s recent projects below, or read about the Year-Round Programme
Audio Tales
A trail across the fields, fens and forests of Lincolnshire, discovering QR codes and unlocking the rich stories and sounds of East Lindsey!
The project involved over 60 creatives from across the local area – from writers and actors, to illustrators and musicians – Audio Tales is an innovative, interactive arts project, that will take you on a journey across our county’s rich past, present and future.
This project was commissioned by Magna Vitae Trust for Leisure and Culture, supported using public funding from Arts Council England, via a National Lottery Project Grant.
Thank you to Writing East Midlands, The House with the Blue Door, The Pump House Recording Studio, The North Sea Observatory, Skegness Academy, lowercase theatre, all the wonderfully talented creatives and all the beautiful locations involved, for helping us tell the stories of East Lindsey.
A Wall of Inspiration: Celebrating Mablethorpe at SO Festival 2025
As part of the week-long SO Festival Community Programme, IMAGESKOOL hosted a special evening event on 9th June at the Sherwood Youth and Community Hub, where residents and users of both the Hub and Sherwood Fields came together to co-create a vibrant art wall celebrating the heart and soul of Mablethorpe.
The project was designed specifically for the Sherwood Youth and Community Hub, and welcomed contributors of all ages. It began with open conversations about what matters most to the people of Mablethorpe. Participants shared uplifting words and messages that reflected their pride, positivity, and connection to the town. These contributions were then transformed into a collaborative piece of art, created live during the festival.
The artwork has found a permanent home in the new community hut at Sherwood Fields, where it continues to showcase the creativity and community spirit of Mablethorpe’s residents.
Mablethorpe Graffiti Wall at SO Festival 2024
Lincolnshire Community and Voluntary Service (LCVS) worked with visitors to Magna Vitae’s SO Festival in Mablethorpe to create this 24ft x 4ft piece of Street Art celebrating Mablethorpe. It’s now on display in Magna Vitae’s newly built Leisure Centre on Station Street in Mablethorpe.
The LCVS Placetalk team, along with IMAGESKOOL facilitated visitors to the festival to to co-create a wall full of inspiration about Mablethorpe at the SO Festival .
The work started with 56 conversations about what matters to people in Mablethorpe and 22 people shared a positive word or message about Mablethorpe which were captured and used on the final piece of art. 173 people, of which around 140 were local residents, took part in creating the art wall as part of at the festival.
This activity was part of Placetalk a community listening project gathering over 1000 conversations with local people in the Mablethorpe area on what matters to them in their community.
You can see the work on display in the Community Room of Station Street Leisure Centre.
Taking Place (People, Place and Practice) Rurality Residency
‘Soft Egg, Don’t Wear It’ by Emelia Kerr Beale, Johan Beavis-Berry, Jack Boal, Ronnie Danaher, Alice Hackney, Oliver Ventress.
UK New Artists (UKNA) launched the first iteration of ‘Taking Place (People, Place and Practice)‘ in Lincoln in 2023; a bespoke programme designed for each place inviting artists from across the UK to participate in a New Artist Collective. As part of this programme, UKNA hosted three residencies; Rurality, Architecture (City and Social) and Play. UKNA partnered with SO Festival on the ‘Rurality’ residency, led by Sonya Hundal.
During the residency, the New Artist Collective members developed a new work ‘Soft Egg, Don’t Wear It’ which was exclusively showcased at SO Festival 2023 in Mablethorpe. Audiences had the opportunity to meet the artists, learn more about their process and see exclusive work in progress.
A mix of visual art, sound installation, film and live performance, ‘Soft Egg, 
Don’t Wear It‘ is a culmination of the artists’ time together in Mablethorpe as collaborators in June 2023. The group had an immediate personal and professional connection that has led to the works you will see. The group was interested in the people of rural spaces; how they interact with it – building character and narrative, having conversations with people. Specifically observing the relationship between the beach and the town and themes of Time, Memory and Loss.
Photo credit: ‘Soft Egg, Don’t Wear it’ at UK New Artists Weekend Celebration of Creativity, Lincoln 2023. Photo by Tom Morley.
Writing East Midlands working with SO Festival
The Coastal Communities project began as a conversation between some professional writers, and a range of community groups in Mablethorpe and Skegness. The writers talked to people, young and old, local, and from further afield. They asked how people felt about this area, about where they live, work, go to school, and they were asked to describe their relationship with the region’s creative offerings such as the SO Festival, and other creative groups they attend.
What started as a conversation quickly became an opportunity to write and participants committed their thoughts and aspirations to paper. This sparked a blaze of colourful ideas, memories and stories in poems and memoir.
Not all positive, there were calls for social change, especially from the younger writers, and there were descriptions of this area’s complex relationship with the tourists that visit each summer. Many people weren’t from the area originally, but have chosen to move here, as it offers connections to happy memories of childhood, and family holidays on the beach. There were lots of ex-millitary personnel who have worked on bases in the region, and people who’ve moved here from the Midlands at the end of busy working lives, attracted by the flat landscape, the beaches, and the (occasional!) sunshine.
The writers met and wrote with over a hundred people. Their writing is uplifting, heartbreaking, and always thought-provoking. What is clear is that these people find creativity in each other, a reverse diaspora of sorts which has become a community rich in stories and connections, united by the fact that they choose to call this place home.
Listen to the poems
SO Festival worked alongside Writing East Midlands to produce a series of bite-size audio recordings that were played via headphones outside a beach chalet in Mablethorpe overlooking our wonderful East Coast during SO Festival 2024.
You can listen to the eight poems using the video below or read some of the poems on the videos further down.
Find out more about Writing East Midlands.
Listen…
Read…
If you’re interested in taking part in one of our programmes, projects or opportunities please email sofestival@mvtlc.org
