Revisit past editions

For our Triennial Edition we invited anyone with a spark of imagination and a point of view to open up and share their energy. The festival ran across the entire summer and into the autumn, 25 July - 19 October. It included two action-packed weekends (we called them Blooms) and an end of Summer open party (Fête of Folkestone) held in Payers Park in collaboration with Under The Moon Art Market.

225 artists took part, across 115 projects and 74 venues, and no less than 14 sponsors supported our efforts that year. Thanks to a 12-week season of art and events—which at points seemed it might as well become a permanent engagement(!)—we became one of the longest-running grassroots art festivals in Kent. This edition and its overlap with the 2025 Folkestone Triennial taught us a tremendous amount, above all about audience participation, assessing our impact, and caring for our volunteers.

The advantage of humble beginnings, we know now, is that there were no expectations.

The inaugural Open Art Folke took place between 13 – 22 September in studios and venues across Folkestone. It brought together over 100 artists, designers and makers across ten days of creative events and activities.

Many participants opted for open studios, but some surprised us with talks, workshops, walks, and curated exhibitions. Not to mention the installations and interventions that were revealed along the way—if you were there, you might remember a lot of disposable film cameras knocking about all over town!

The Brewery Tap Project Space (RIP), along with Kollectiv, acted as our festival hubs and offered spaces to gather and discuss experiences. Thanks to the help of Folkestone Fringe, we were also able to launch an art market, which we sadly have no pictures to prove how amazing it looked.