World 127, Enactment i: report

This Enactment was developed from

Collaged head and shoulders of two figures made from roughly cut brightly coloured paper.

A child’s hands holding a daffodil head and leaves crafted from felt.

A pile of open umbrellas decorated with a wide variety of cut out head and shoulders, one per panel - some collaged from craft paper, some sketched or painted.

A parade of children in a school playground, some carrying brightly coloured decorated umbrellas, one with a flag, some playing recorders, all wearing bright casual clothing.

Brightly coloured 3D collage made from a tangle of seemingly random items - samples of weaving and knitting, bits of lace and plastic webbing, old carrier bags and an egg box - suggestive of marine pollution.

This World 127 Enactment took the form of a school-wide celebration based on the creative reuse of umbrellas and culminating in a carnival parade to celebrate King Charles’ coronation.

This was organised by Deputy Head Teacher Becky Freeman and staff at Moorlands Primary School in Huddersfield, UK, with the support of local artists Julia Roebuck and Kim Searle. The whole school, including 630 pupils aged 4-11, were involved.

The text guiding this Enactment:

Because of climate change, Bergen, the rainiest city in Europe, became the rainiest city in World 127 in 2010. The consumption of umbrellas became very high, and the 2015 world’s pandemia made this industry stop among others. A local group of inhabitants decided then to create a local industry of recycled umbrellas, the most used fashion article in this city.

People started organizing workshop to fix umbrellas or create new ones from local fabric waste (old fishnet, old clothes waterproof, sailing fabrics etc.). They created a new local industry, more jobs, less waste, and social media allowed the local concept to spread in the world and to become a normal thing to do.

What if …

recycling and fixing the most useful article in Huddersfield was a priority? And what if this article was an umbrella? What if these umbrellas were used to send messages to others and used to celebrate events?

Making connections between the impacts of fashion and textiles and the King’s environmental concerns, each year group adapted the project to fit with their current curriculum. Over a period of three weeks, pupils embellished their umbrellas ahead of the coronation day parade.

Pupils collaborated to develop their ideas, made connections between fashion and textiles and the environment in different age-appropriate ways, learnt practical textile skills and enjoyed sharing their creations as part of the final celebratory parade.

In this case study video, deputy head teacher Becky Freeman tells us about the project:

Carnival of umbrellas: Becky Freeman reflects on a Stage 3 enactment at Moorlands Primary School, Huddersfield, UK

A group of schoolgirls sitting cross-legged on the classroom floor, drawing round stencils of simple five-petalled flower shapes on coloured paper.

Happy schoolchildren, decorated umbrellas aloft, marching together outside the school.

Umbrellas open to show the variety of bright collaged faces stuck on, one per panel.

A boy smiling at the camera, holding an umbrella decorated with collaged faces, surrounded by other children in the parade.

A crowd of children sitting on the playground, in the foreground two decorated umbrellas, one black with concentric circles of running stitch in green, yellow and white tape, the other transparent, two children visible beneath it, the canopy decorated with long strands of braided grey and yellow yarn radiating from the centre, small samples of children’s handcraft attached round the edge - swatches woven in grey, yellow and white, and scraps of yellow cloth decorated with buttons and running stitch.

Children sitting on the playground, in the foreground a smiling girl holding an umbrella decorated with cut-out paper fish surrounded by old plastic bags and lengths of finger-knitted cord suggestive of polluted seas.

Adapt this Enactment

Would you like to adapt this Enactment for your setting? Please feel free to use the ideas shared here – and tell us how it went! Send an email to Amy with your news.

This Enactment was devised by Becky Freeman, based on a World contributed by Amandine Maillard Bourgeois, using a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence which allows others to share and adapt the work in any medium and for any purpose, providing that they credit the authors and share their material using the same Creative Commons licence.

Thanks to Becky Freeman and all the staff and pupils at Moorlands Primary School and to Julia Roebuck at Upcycle Fashion, Kim Searle at Darn It! Workshops and the Weaving Together a Story of Place project funded by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation for their support.

Visit the original World 127 fiction

Does this World remind you of something?

I am keen to hear about any historical or contemporary real-world examples – whether individual practices, subcultures or mainstream activities – that this fiction brings to mind.

Please share any such examples using this form. Thank you!