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Festival of Stamps

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Concept

6d stamp featuring a mini from the British Motor Cars stamp issue from September 1966The Festival is an exciting opportunity to bring stamps into the 21st century.  These miniature pieces of art are accessible to all, and provide a link to any kind of topic you can imagine... art, design, history, geography and communication.

The BPMA will support the Festival by coordinating a series of events at museums, archives, libraries, and other venues across the capital. This will create a Festival in every sense of the word, that will re-generate an interest in stamps, especially amongst younger audiences.

For more about the aims of the Festival you can download our London:2010 Mission statement (150KB)

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Background

Stonehenge and the Wet Tropics of Queensland - from the stamp issue 'World Heritage Sites' April 2005.So why 2010?  This year marks the centenary of the accession of King George V, the renowned 'Philatelist King'.  The Festival will be a year-long celebration of exhibitions and events to mark this centenary.

The London: 2010 Festival is of course two years before the 2012 London Olympics. The Olympics are as much a cultural as a sporting event, and so the London: 2010 Festival of Stamps will be part of the cultural and artistic lead-up to the Games.

There are many cultural initiatives every year, but we think that the simple and broad appeal of stamps is something new.

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Schedule

Duncan Edwards - from the stamp issue 'Football Legends' May 1996.

As well as our own central exhibition Empire Mail: George V and the GPO the BPMA is coordinating the wider Festival taking place over the whole year. Details of all the events that have been planned so far can be found at www.london2010.org.uk

We will also be running a programme of other events, including talks, film screenings and family activities. See What's On for details.

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Contact

King James I of England and the King James Bible - stamp issue from the Millennium series: 'The Christians' Tale' November 1999.We have a full year’s timetable of exhibitions and events, and there is room for more. There are no restrictions on how cultural organisations can take part: stamps as a theme offer so much flexibility!

  • You could run a Big Draw event, as part of the national Campaign for Drawing, to design a stamp or postmark for your organisation.

  • Or you could take any part of your collection connected to the post or communication – be it stamps, artists, maps, letters, travel – as a starting point for an exhibition. Just take a look at our great Penny Black resources to see how we worked with stamps for Victorian history.

  • Stamps cover almost every topic you can think of: to get some more ideas take a look at our own Icons of England stamp exhibition.

It may be that you simply have a venue – a display area, an event or meeting room – but are unable to mount exhibitions or events yourself.  We would still like to hear from you, as the more venues we have, the better the Festival will be!

If you are interested in taking part in the Festival please contact our London 2010 Project Manager, Jennifer Flippance at jennifer.flippance@postalheritage.org.uk or on 020 7239 2561.

Please note: you do not have to be a London organisation to take part - we want to hear from everyone who is interested.

A full marketing strategy including a specific website for the Festival is currently being developed.  For more information on this please contact Jenny Karlsson on 020 7239 2574.

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From the blog

Information Technology stamp from 1982

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