The annual T100 Festival of Walking, Talking & Making returned to Thurrock for 2023 between 21 June – 9 July with T100 Sounds. This year’s festival engaged with over 1,800 people and featured a series of sixteen free sound-filled walks, engaging community-led talks and activities, and exciting events celebrating Thurrock and local communities all delivered along the Thames Estuary.
T100 Sounds launched on Wednesday 21 June with a special summer solstice walk of RSPB Rainham Marshes, taking in the different bird songs and calls, led by one of their highly knowledgeable and passionate guide. Over the next two and a half weeks, 15 more walks took place all across Thurrock, with each event highlighting the local landscape and unique stories of the area through its sounds.
The finale of T100 Sounds took place at High House Production Park on 9 July between 12 – 5pm, joining Colourscape Festival, an inflatable walk-through sculpture of colour and light combined with a programme of musicians from across Thurrock and installations and exhibitions profiling local creativity. The lively event featured music on a stage by local musicians including Thobile, The Calmers, William Palmer Trust, Goodnight Crow, North Ockendon Handbell Ringers and the Thames Opera Company. There were also a number of family-friendly activities taking place across the park, including leaf pounding in the new natural dye community garden, the Garden of Delight, and more.
Additional highlights from this year’s festival included:
22 June: T100 led over 200 pupils from Gateway Learning Community on a closed walk to the Port of Tilbury for students to take part in the Port’s Windrush 75 celebrations. Students joined in the activities marking the day that HMT Empire Windrush arrived at Tilbury docks in 1948 bringing more than 800 passengers from the Caribbean, a moment that shaped modern Britain. A plaque was unveiled at Tilbury Town Station to mark the occasion and young people performed the specially-commissioned song, ‘Tilbury is the Place for Us’, which was written by the children of The Gateway Learning Community with TS Eliot prize winner Anthony Joseph, Kinetika, Kinetika Bloco and T100 Festival for T100 Dreaming in 2021.
Saturday 1 July, the ‘Rolling Down the River’ walk from Tilbury to Grays explored the area’s rich historical and cultural significance and maritime heritage. This lovely evening walk culminated at Thurrock Yacht Club for a sold out Shanty Night, with live performances from local shanty bands including Arts Outburst’s Feelgood Fridays Shanty Group, The Hoy Shanty Crew and the Silver Darlings.
Thurrock Soundscape, a new audio experience was commissioned for this year’s T100 Festival. The Thurrock Soundscape could be heard between 7 – 9 July at St Clement’s Church, as part of T100 Sounds. Created by multi-media artist Fotis Begklis, members of the local Thurrock community and East Tilbury Primary School, the soundscape featured four mesmerising audio pieces which interweaved voices and sounds. Inspired by long walks, the immersive installation juxtaposed the rich tapestry of Thurrock’s landscape and the church’s distinctive location along the graffiti wall walk. The soundscape and the workshop model developed through the creation of the work will be utilised by T100 for future festivals to further explore the possibilities of recreating walks through sound.
