What exactly is the East Anglian Folklore Centre?

The East Anglian Folklore Centre is a physical (and digital) space that offers an invitation, where folk who are interested in how we storytell our landscape; through Art, Craft, Tale, Song, Dance, Ritual, Tradition and Practice…might gather. While the doors are open, everyone is welcome. We are currently based within the Minories Gallery, Colchester and maintain an active presence on instagram.

We are open to (and actively encourage) collaboration, and aim to build regular opportunities for artists, creatives, academics and the public to share folk skills and lore, and to celebrate and build robust folk practices together.

We intend to celebrate the brilliant stories from across our region, this should reflect the great wealth of variety available locally and contributions that truly reflect it’s diverse population. We do this by also celebrating the context we find ourselves in more widely, within both the UK and global folk landscapes. We are interested in Anticipatory Folklore, exploring the stories, rituals, traditions and practices that we might want or need to carry forward and even build for the future.

We have an ever growing Research Library which is available for folk to use within our space. We have comfy chairs and a childrens seating available for a cosy reading session and usually there is space at our table for more serious research. To address some of the issues we have with accessibility in the building we are holding regular reading room events downstairs at The Commons Cafe.

We have a small curated shop area which helps to support our activities and showcases the work of East Anglian artists who are interested in the same things as we are here. This shop is stocked on a Sale or Return basis and we take a 30% commission on sales with the rest of your spend going directly to the artist. We have an online shop too but will only put up things that are exclusive to the Folklore Centre and easily postable. Currently we only deliver to customers within the United Kingdom.

We also curate events and exhibitions and have an exciting programme exploring a range of different themes planned for the next year…and hopefully beyond!

Can I hire the space?

We have been asked this question more than we’d expected! The short answer is no.

We rent one room in the beautiful Minories Gallery in Colchester. The gallery itself has hireable spaces so it’s worth contacting them direct if you want to organise a standalone event.

We use this service ourselves for any Folklore Centre events that we organise outside of our room and pay additional charges for those extra spaces accordingly.

We are however absolutely open to collaborate on events and it is worth getting in touch if you have any ideas as we are planning a varied programme for the next 12 months…and you never know, something you’re keen to do might fit with things we are already cooking up!

How is the centre funded?

Currently the East Anglian Folklore Centre is a Self-Funded passion project. As working class artists this situation is finite and we are absolutely seeking and applying for funding to help support the longer term sustainability of the project. We are always happy to be pointed in the direction of any opportunities that might be appropriate!

If you’d like to offer practical support there is provision to make donations to the Folklore Centre through our Ko-fi and spending money in our little shop also helps contribute to our income. We are hoping to launch an affordable membership scheme soon.

The events we organise are not intended to make profit but build community. As such the cost of tickets is determined by the cost of delivery and we build them with affordability and good value in mind.

For this reason we reserve the right to pull any events that look like they could be working to a substantial loss. We simply can’t afford to be out of pocket at this point in our journey! We will however only do this if absolutely neccessary, give as much notice as we can and offer full refunds to ticket holders!

Can I volunteer?

We are currently taking details for any folk interested in volunteering. We are however still building our operational framework and writing up clear and helpful volunteer guidelines.

We absolutely value any time folk may want to contribute so we need to be sure we are ready to offer a fun and supported environment for out volunteers. We hope to be ready for you early next year.