Making THE HERDS in Heywood

Over the past months, 65 people from Heywood came together to take part in workshops to bring life-size puppet animals to life. These hands-on creative sessions are building the bricks to platform the ambitious international art project that is THE HERDS, part of Factory International's Manchester International Festival 2025. 

Local groups including LinkAbility, PossAbility, Cartwheel Arts, PINC College, Creative Health, and Heywood Scribblers came together to take part in local workshops, to meet new people and experience getting hands-on with these impressive puppets. 

THE HERDS is a public art project on a scale never attempted before, spanning continents with a monumental migration of 70 puppet animals on a 20,000km journey from the Congo basin to the Arctic Circle. 

From cities in West Africa and Europe, to London, Manchester, and now Heywood. It was a joy for local residents to be connect, create, and contribute to something much bigger than ourselves. 

Watch the story unfold: Click here to see the video about Making the Herds workshops happening across continents.