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The Queen's Relay Baton visits The Garden of England
Glasgow Commonwealth Games 2014

On 5th June 2014, Kent will welcome The Queen’s Baton Relay (QBR) during its two-week journey across England, drumming up support for Team England and marking the run up to the Commonwealth Games which start in Glasgow on 23 July.

The baton will spend the day in Kent and will visit a number of locations across the county to celebrate the Commonwealth Games and promote participation in sport and culture.

We are delighted to announce that Animate Arts has been invited by QBR Kent team to represent the commonwealth and our corner of England, by building an installation of ‘The Garden of England’. Over the next couple of months, artists from Animate Arts will be working with ten schools across Maidstone re-creating our iconic Kent 2012 project to design and construct a full-size garden made entirely out of paper and card! Mike Hill, KCC's Cabinet Member for Community Services said,

“I’m delighted that Kent was selected to host the Queen’s Baton Relay. This is a great opportunity to inspire young people across our county. We are particularly delighted that the Baton will be visiting a number of our schools across the county, highlighting some of their programmes linking Olympic legacy with the forthcoming Glasgow Commonwealth Games.”

This Garden of England installation will be completely different garden from our 2012 project (although you can watch how we built a garden from paper in 2012 by clicking the 'film' square above). Animate Arts will be working with 300 new young people, teachers and artists who will create a new interpretation of an English garden. With Commonwealth Games England President Dame Kelly Holmes and a host of VIPs and media visiting the artwork, we plan to make a spectacular piece that will include more unusual garden features like badminton racket-flowers and netball-hoop hanging-baskets.... and of course, made only with the humble material of paper.

The installation will take root in Maidstone County Hall from 5th June and will be open to the public from 6th – 8th June 2014.

If you would like to follow the Queen’s Baton during its English leg of the UK, you can tweet messages of support to Team England via @weRengland. Or alternatively, Animate Arts will also document their Garden of England project via @animate_arts and on facebook www.facebook.com/AnimateArtsCompany.