Salmon Puppet

I was commissioned to work with ex-offenders in an Approved Premises to make a large-scale puppet for the Carlisle City Council and Prism Arts, Puppet Pageant.

Aims

• To teach new skills

• To improve participant wellbeing

• To create a puppet for the pageant

We worked over 8 sessions to create a 4-metre-long salmon puppet out of recycled materials. We were asked to create a salmon to celebrate the Haaf Net fishing industry. The puppet was then paraded in the big City centre Puppet Pageant.

It was a challenge to encourage the ex-offenders to engage, but we had a regular group who worked on it. Some participants enjoyed it so much they even worked on it in their own time. Staff also joined in.