2026 EDITION: CARLISLE — DRAWN TOGETHER
Do the Doodle at INTRO for Carlisle Weekend –
COME BACK AGAIN SOON FOR PHOTOS & FOOTAGE FROM THE WEEKEND!
Saturday 26th September 10:00 – 17:00 & Sunday 27th September 10:00 – 14:00
INTRO, Paternoster Row, Carlisle
In September 2026, Do the Doodle returns to Carlisle with a new edition created for Great Border City BID’s Carlisle Weekend.
This time, Carlisle itself becomes our inspiration: its people, stories, rivers, wildlife, landmarks, movement, memories—and the many different ways we each experience the city.
Throughout the weekend, visitors will be invited to add a line, mark, character, pattern, journey or idea to an evolving cumulative artwork. Contributions can be tiny or expansive, careful or expressive. As one person responds to another, the installation will grow into a shared portrait of Carlisle created by the people who live in, work in and visit the city.
There is no need to think of yourself as an artist. You can contribute for a few minutes, stay and explore for longer, or return to see how the artwork has changed.
Featured artists and activities
🎠 Michelle Russell continues the theme of the World Fun Fair gallopers through her creative city trail. Cardboard gallopers can be discovered in shops and locations across Carlisle, while visitors to INTRO can add their own marks, journeys, landmarks and imagined destinations to Michelle’s evolving city trail maps.
🖤 Rosie Galloway-Smith explores how Carlisle feels through expressive charcoal drawing. Participants will be invited to contribute four marks—large or small—in response to the marks already present, gradually creating one large collective composition.
🌊 Susan Cartwright-Smith, Cumbria Wildlife Trust writer-in-residence, takes inspiration from the Eden, Caldew and Petteril—the three rivers cradling our city. Visitors can doodle river creatures, patterns of water, wildlife and the meandering routes of Carlisle’s waterways.
💬 Arthur Cartwright-Smith invites participants to tell Carlisle-inspired stories through comics. Use ready-made panels or create your own page layout, then fill it with characters, conversations, adventures and imagined encounters.
✍️ by Zoë Leigh brings Zoë’s signature doodle style into the evolving installation. Alongside leading Do the Doodle for Dance Ahead, Zoë will display a selection of her work and create new, responsive doodles inspired by the marks, stories and ideas contributed throughout the weekend—helping to thread many individual responses into one collective artwork.
One city. Many perspectives. One artwork created together.
Do the Doodle is not about producing a perfect drawing. It is about curiosity, exchange and discovering what can happen when one person’s idea becomes the starting point for somebody else.
Come and make your mark on Carlisle.
Local artists: there is still time to join us
We have a limited number of paid, one-hour Guest Doodler slots at £50 each.
If you are a local artist or creative practitioner with an accessible activity that could invite people to draw, make, move or respond to Carlisle, please email info@danceahead.co.uk with a brief outline of your idea and availability.
2026 edition commissioned by:
Remembering Jen Bibby
Characoal drawing created at Do the Doodle, 2019
Do the Doodle – The History
Produced by Dance Ahead in May 2019 in association with BBC Radio Cumbria and The Lanes Shopping Centre, Carlisle as part of the Get Creative Festival. Do the Doodle, supported in kind by University of Cumbria, transformed a centrally based empty retail space into a whitewashed canvas for community play and immersion. The space was split into zones providing an interactive community art installation that merged dance and doodling in innovative, accessible ways.
As part of BBC’s Get Creative project in May we produced a unique event that allowed passers-by and members of the community to create a cumulative community artwork through movement and doodling.
OBJECTIVES
- To raise the profile of creative and cultural engagement within Carlisle communities
- To encourage inter-generational sharing through multi-disciplinary arts practice
- To participate in a national BBC event and raise the profile of Carlisle
- To encourage diverse social interaction through a series of accessible participatory activities
- To allow for freedom of expression through multi-media disciplines and the ongoing co-curation of public art
- To enable collaboration and cross-disciplinary practice between local artists and community participants
BENEFITS
- Increased community access to creative practice
- Use of empty space – assisting in a reimagining of city centre for a social purpose
- Greater exposure and community reach for local artists
- Opportunities for collaborative relationships between businesses, artists and communities
- Local exposure through BBC Radio Cumbria
