We are delighted to announce that artist Sally Chinea has been commissioned for a project to celebrate the Festival of Thetford & Punjab, led by Arts La’Olam in partnership with Essex Cultural Diversity Project and Ancient House Museum.

Sally Chinea is an Essex based artist with an exhibiting and street art practice, who has extensive experience in education for the past 35 years, engaging the younger generations in art through creative clubs, workshops and projects.

In close collaboration with the community of Thetford, the artist will design and create flags and bunting for the festival Mela this July. These flags will include historical drawn artefacts, local people and places of interest, as well as the history, culture and music of the Punjab linked through the Duleep Singh story.

Thetford residents will be invited to a series of Batik workshops at Ancient House Museum, open to the public as well as local people from various community groups including Year 6-10s from a therapeutic special needs school, and pupils from a Social, Emotional and Mental Health (SEMH) school. Participants will be introduced to vibrant colourful dyes to create their individual pieces, which will then be processed and sewn together to make the unique storytelling flags.

As part of the project the artist will create a flag reflecting Thetford and another focused on Punjab, India, replicated with bunting and used for the festival décor at the Thetford Mela. The flags and bunting will welcome the local Thetford community to the event, as well as the wider Punjabi diaspora travelling from as far as Wolverhampton, Gravesend, East London and Birmingham. 14 flags will be placed around Festival sites including Ancient House, Butten Island and Thetford Grammar School.

“This is a great opportunity to work with Sally Chinea as part of the wider festival, harnessing community engagement and participation to create unique artwork that reflects the heritage, culture and history of both Punjab and Thetford” Indi Sandhu, Festival Director of Thetford and Punjab

About the Artist 

Within my own personal practice, I have a passion for site specific art and art that has community engagement. I love to work with textiles in its many forms, particularly the found object. I find the things people throw away carry with them stories of a past life, leading me to explore and work in a wide range of different mediums. These materials become my starting point, too manipulate and recontextualize, leaving evidence of the handmade, evoking time spent, manual labour and contemplation.

I have work in National Trust properties, various museums, and have organised the Hadleigh and Rochford art Trail.

I proudly worked on the Rochford District Heritage Tapestry Project, researching and drawing panels for a team of 90+ community members to embroider from. And most recently I have most recently been working on the Orchard Heritage Environment Culture project where local communities, families and different generations told their amazing stories and shared memories of local places, landmarks, childhood recollections. The workshops were designed for non-artists and non-drawers, where attendees could capture their memories on squares of silk and recreate in batik,(drawing with hot wax) and then paint it, these were then sewn together into 16 large flags and memory prayer bunting was created, to be used at various event across the districts.

United Threads of Thetford and Punjab is made possible through a commission from Arts La’Olam, supported by Arts Council England, in partnership with Essex Cultural Diversity Project and Ancient House Museum.