A festival that has become a firm favourite in Suffolk is crossing the border and to bring an outreach project to Great Yarmouth.

Great Yarmouth Mercury: Flipside Festival is staging an outreach project in Great Yarmouth with a focus on Brazilian culture and literature.Flipside Festival is staging an outreach project in Great Yarmouth with a focus on Brazilian culture and literature. (Image: Archant)

The Flipside Festival has been a highlight in Snape’s cultural calendar for three years.

An offshoot of the original Flip which takes place in a small fishing village in Brazil it has opted to go biennial and will return in 2017.

Taking a year off means organisers can focus on a series of outreach events in Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft, in the year Brazil hosts the Olympic Games.

In Yarmouth the project will involve an exhibition of bandit sculptures at Skippings Gallery in King Street staged by Brazilian-born Ron King, who will be there in person next week.

His works will be visited by up to 500 school children who will then be asked to write a short story or poem inspired by what they have seen.

They will then bind their creative responses into a cordel, or string book, that will be displayed either at Skippings or at the Minster during the town’s art festival in June.

Outreach co-ordinator Alyson Tipping said the aim was to work with existing events already being staged in the town.

So far around 150 school-children had signed up with many more schools warming to the idea along with members of the Portuguese community.

Although the town had a growing reputation for festivals, there was little with a literary element, she added.

She said: “The idea of the project is trying to get people in to spaces that they would not normally go into like art galleries. Crossing the threshold and finding that it is ok and you are made to feel welcome is a big thing.”

The Flip festival was founded in Brazil by Liz Calder who fell in love with the country in the 1960s. She went on to become founder/director of Bloomsbury publishing retiring to Suffolk several years ago.

Flipside came about as a way of proving to the world that there was a lot more to Brazil than Samba and football, the location and landscape of Snape chiming with the fishing village where Flip is staged attracting 20,000 people.

It has grown to embrace writers from across all Latin America.

In Yarmouth organisers hope to build on this first foray and see the Skippings’ event as “just the beginning.”

The bandit exhibition features around 20 sculptures made over decades harking back to tales and folklore and revealing how storytelling connects cultures.

The exhibition will have a special opening week, from Monday, May 16 to Friday, May 20, when Ron King himself will be at the gallery every day.

Thereafter, the exhibition will open Wednesday to Saturday until Saturday, June 11. The opening times are 11am to 4pm.

To find out more contact aly@flipsidefestival.org.