Outdoor art festival returns to Folkestone

A prestigious outdoor contemporary art festival is returning to a Kent town after being delayed for a year.

The sixth edition of the internationally renowned Folkestone Triennial starts on Saturday and runs until 19 October.

This year’s event was delayed after local officials secured £20m funding.

Alastair Upton, chief executive of Creative Folkestone, said: “Over the last two decades, the Folkestone Triennial has been instrumental in reimagining the town as a hub for artistic innovation.”

This year’s Triennial will see 18 artists from 15 countries create “ambitious new commissions that will transform Folkestone’s urban and coastal landscapes”, organisers said.

The commissions will take over some of the town’s most striking and unusual locations, including a church built for the fishing community, a former customs house, a Martello Tower, a lookout point across the Channel, and a disused railway bridge.

Sorcha Carey, the exhibition’s curator, said: “All the artworks are created and presented in response to the specific context and landscape of Folkestone.

“But the questions they explore are universal.”

Organisers say the outdoor exhibition has brought in £100m to the local area over the years.

Previous exhibitions have included new works by Tracey Emin, Mark Wallinger and Yoko Ono.

In 2014 a Banksy mural appeared on a park wall during the festival.

The most recent Folkestone Triennial, in 2021, welcomed more than 220,000 visitors, according to its organisers.