2026 Archives - CAST

Ben Rivers introduces

Artist and filmmaker Ben Rivers creates intimate portrayals of solitary beings or isolated communities, using a documentary style as a starting point from which to imagine alternative narratives and existences in marginal worlds.

Selected 16

Selected 16 presents a collection of new short films by some of the most exciting early career artists working today, nominated by artists shortlisted for the Film London Jarman Award 2025

Neptune Frost

Neptune Frost is an Afrofuturist sci-fi musical set between an otherworldly techno-scrapheap in Burundi and a futuristic Rwandan coltan mine.

Roman Signer

I have always thought that explosions conceal and create possibilities for sculpture. For me an explosion was always a kind of mental liberation. The pressure, then the fear. After the explosion you feel incredibly free. I was just interested in that.

Making Mobiles

Join artist Lucy Grant to make colourful geometric mobiles inspired by the art of Alexander Calder. Make a stable base then cut out colourful card shapes and hang them from wire to create a delicately balanced moving structure.

Intaglio Print Portraits

Make intaglio portraits of friends and family, using a print process employed by artists since the fifteenth century. The studio will be equipped with printing plates, etching tools, artist quality paper and a small press.

Block Printing

Imagine yourself as an architect and design your own house or building. Choose from a variety of cardboard shapes and objects to use as the building blocks to print your own simple and striking image.

Maritime Painting

Join artist Lucy Grant to imagine and paint your own dramatic sea adventure, taking inspiration from some of the great artists who have painted ships at sea.

CAST-OFF SATURDAY 29 AUGUST

CHANGE OF VENUE – due to the forecast of heavy rain and high winds tomorrow, the final CAST-Off of the summer will take place indoors, in the CAST building.

CAST-OFF SATURDAY 22 AUGUST

Make prints using leaves collected from around the garden and look for detailed textures from which to make rubbings. Build folk-inspired wooden constructions, paint a portrait of yourself or of a family member, and create a two-tone plaque out of clay.

CAST-OFF SATURDAY 15 AUGUST

Paint a colourful still life arrangement of fruit, flowers and vegetables, and create crowns from flowers. Build animals from wood and make houses and habitats of all shapes and sizes from clay.

CAST-OFF SATURDAY 8 AUGUST

Use the power of the sun to create your own cyanotype print, build a wheeled contraption from wood, and move water using structures built from pipes and tubes. Paint a Loe trout using natural pigments and create a clay creature.

CAST-OFF SATURDAY 1 AUGUST

Find ways to move water uphill using waterwheels and pumps, paint colourful feathered birds, and make an intaglio image of an insect, using a tiny printing press. You can also build a wooden boat that floats and make tiny tableware out of clay.

Our Living Archives

This event is part of Our Living Archives, an ongoing project organised by Museum X and Kowetha, which sets out to understand the collections relating to Black history held by Cornish museums and archives, and to increase access to these collections for people of colour.

Wednesdays in the Art Studio

Artist Lucy Grant will lead free creative activities in CAST’s ground floor learning studio every Wednesday in August.

Songs for the Future

Sound and song play a central role in the work of award-winning British-Greek artist Mikhail Karikis, whose works employ the power of peoples’ voices and of collectively-produced sounds to focus on themes of social and environmental justice, human action and solidarity.

POLLINATOR PATHMAKER CONSTANTINE NETWORK

Organised by artist Dr Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg, University of Exeter and the University of Edinburgh, this is an evening of talks and discussion by the artist and researchers who are studying gardens in Constantine that have been planted as part of Dr Ginsberg’s Pollinator Pathmaker artwork.