Welcome Week 2022 featured the launch of the first Bristol Futures Festival. It introduced first year students to the unique Bristol educational offer; championing themes of enterprise and innovation, sustainability, and global citizenship. During the festival students learned how they can connect to these themes within and beyond their curriculum, such as via FutureLearn-hosted courses recognised through the BristolPlus Award, and credit-bearing open units.
The event kicked off with clown-led laughter yoga, followed by the musical ska-rap, giant bubble performance art, live violin, and the Decolonising Memory dance group. Students were also invited to create their own art via the Pedal Emporium stall. Here, artist Caz connected a recycled standing bicycle to a spinning drum to drop paint on it and create dynamic keepsakes. The Bristol Futures tote bags, which were chocked full of locally-produced hand-made products, proved very popular and two hours into the event all 500 goodie bags were gone!
The festival was a fantastic opportunity to share and promote the work of our Bristol students to new students. They enjoyed hearing from experienced undergraduate and postgraduate voices about what makes living and studying in Bristol great!
The event also launched the first ever issue of the Bristol Futures Zine! Full of articles, collage, poetry, short stories, and puzzles submitted by students across the whole university.
The day also launched the Universal City App, an interactive three-dimensional map of Bristol that shows an alternative view of the city. The map foregrounds experiences and histories of Bristolians from all corners of the city, encouraging exploration of the city beyond the perceived security of the University Campus. The map is designed to expand knowledge of Bristol, giving students and residents agency, as well as historical and cultural awareness of the city like never before. Universal City is a joint initiative from the UOB and CARGO movement collective.
BILT would like to offer huge thanks to all of our performers on the day, the staff who organised the event and provided security, and a special thanks to our six student helpers who were a joy to work with!
Watch this space for incoming photos and video content from the event!
Explore the Bristol Futures Student Showcase to see further examples of students’ work from the open units, such as videos, articles and story books.