CAST and Clay Trap Christmas Makers Market
Join CAST, Clay Trap, The Seaweed Institute, CAST Café and a range of artisan makers for our first Christmas Market.
Remember Nature
Remember Nature 2025 celebrates the 10th anniversary of an art project initiated in 2015 by the celebrated artist Gustav Metzger (1926–2017).
HAMISH FULTON presents Bringing Tibet Home
On the 6 November the celebrated ‘walking artist’ Hamish Fulton will lead a communal walk in Helston and introduce a screening of the documentary Bringing Tibet Home.
Creatures of the Kiln
Join Vicky Wiltshire from Clay Trap to make your own clay creature, talisman or charm. If you would like to keep your creation you will have the option to have it fired, at a cost of £5 per item. Participants of all ages are welcome.
Paper Lantern Making
Join Lucy Grant to find out about lantern traditions around the world, use wax and tissue paper to create translucent shapes and make your own special lantern. Participants of all ages are welcome.
Open CAST 2025
CAST studio artists will open their doors on the first weekend of November, providing an opportunity to meet the artists and visit work spaces that are usually behind closed doors. The Café will be open and there will be free drop-in activities on offer each day.
Artist's Choice | The Big Sea
The Big Sea is an exploration of the human and environmental costs of neoprene production in ‘Cancer Alley’, Louisiana. Neoprene is a material often used to make wetsuits and the film uses the lens of surfing to expose issues of greenwashing, social justice and environmental racism, and to explore the power individuals have to create change.
Helston and 'The Battle of the Styles’
In the middle of the nineteenth century the architectural world was in turmoil over the design of a new government building in London – the Foreign Office in Whitehall. Fierce battle lines were drawn and architects and politicians – including the Prime Minister – banded words like never before, in what became known as ‘The…
TEMPLATES, TRACINGS AND TRANSFERS
Artist Alison Turnbull uses found sources such as architectural plans, scientific diagrams and star charts as the basis for creating abstract work. This workshop will follow the same material processes Turnbull uses in her own paintings and drawings, with a focus on templates, stencils, tracing paper, rulers and different geometric drafting tools.
An Evening of Poetry
Prize-winning poets Penelope Shuttle and Katrina Naomi present an evening of poetry including readings from their upcoming publications.
Ingrid Pollard
Throughout her extensive career, artist Ingrid Pollard has broken new ground and forged new pathways for younger generations.
Lightbox Tuesday 12 August
Create sea monsters and curious underwater shadow puppets and make your own slides to project in our black box space, or trace a friend’s portrait using camera obscura technology.
Lightbox Tuesday 5 August
Trace a friend’s portrait using camera obscura technology. Dress up and strike a pose for an old-fashioned black and white portrait. Make wiggly compositions from seaweed and use the power of the sun to develop your very own cyanotypes:
Lightbox Tuesday 19 August
Make an articulated contraption, taking inspiration from machines and ‘things that go’. Build your very own zoetrope – an animation device that will make your drawings come to life! Use camera obscura technology to make portraits in Jonathan Polkest’s ‘Draw Me/Tedna Ve’ booth.
CAST-Off Saturday 23 August
Learn how to make your own plantable paper with seeds embedded, create your own construction from wood, or polish serpentine stone into a shiny pendant. You can also have a go on our tiny printing press or make an enormous vegetable print!
CAST-Off Saturday 16 August
Listen carefully and sculpt the sounds you hear out of different coloured plasticine or see what water carrying structures you can make with tubes and pipes. There will also be an opportunity to try your hand at creating felt pods, mask making, and building with clay.
CAST-Off Saturday 9 August
Make a kite in the shape of a fish to fly in the wind and see what you can build from wood. Spend time painting and try your hand at printmaking using a portable press.
CAST-Off Saturday 2 August
Build your own extravagant flower crown out of cardboard and use flotsam and jetsam to add to a giant aquarium. Try your hand at stone carving and wood working and spend time exploring with clay and paint.
CAST-Off Saturday 26 July
Join our team of talented artists and learn how to make nature-print photo journals and create constructions from wood. You can also mix earth colours and botanical inks to paint with and paint curious sea creatures to add to our giant aquarium.
Lightbox
Three free days of family friendly activity will offer opportunities to to experiment with some of the scientific techniques that underpin the processes of photography and moving image.
William Kentridge
This presentation of two short films, made some twenty years apart, offers a window into the creative processes of celebrated South African artist William Kentridge.
LISSETTE JIMÉNEZ DÍAZ
We are delighted to welcome Lissette Jiménez Díaz to CAST for a month-long residency
LISSETTE JIMÉNEZ DÍAZ
To mark the end of her month-long residency, Lissette Jiménez Díaz will host an open studio, offering visitors an opportunity to see works in progress made during her time at CAST.
SUMMER HOLIDAY ACTIVITIES
This summer we are offering creative activities both in the CAST building and out of doors. The CAST-Off programme will return to the Walled Garden at National Trust Penrose and we have also planned three days of Lightbox activities in the black box and learning spaces at CAST.