Town centre will be filled with colourful sticks

Italian company Stalker Teatro described their colourful wooden stick creations as a bridge between art and performance

A town centre is set to be filled with a structure made from brightly-coloured wooden sticks, as part of an arts event.

Spill Festival is held in Ipswich every two years, combining performance art, workshops and family-friendly activities.

The 2025 programme, which takes place 23-26 October, includes Steli, where people can join in to help create a huge, spontaneous construction.

Artistic director Robin Deacon said: "Spill offers lots of points of contact for people to participate and engage.... It's not just about sitting and watching stuff, it's actually getting stuck in."

Spill artistic director Robin Deacon unboxes this year's festival programmes

The four-day programme includes a mix of ticketed and free events.

Steli will run its free event on the Cornhill on the Saturday and Sunday (the start of the school half-term), and the project is suitable for people aged four and over.

Mr Deacon said: "You might remember from 2023, our last festival, we had a big cardboard build of Wolsey's Gate, which we all demolished at the end of the festival and had a lot of fun doing that.

"So this year we're working with an Italian company who are going to bring lots of really brightly coloured sticks, which we will work together to build another construction.

"Just stumbling across something and experiencing something out of the ordinary that you weren't expecting, we're still very much keeping that tradition alive this year as well."

BBC Journalist Jon Wright took part in creating (and pulling down) a huge cardboard structure on the Ipswich Cornhill in 2023, based on Thomas Wolsey's planned University

Festival performances will also reflect the county's landscape and communities.

Slovenian artist Mark Pozlep walked Suffolk's 100km coastline to create Leviathan, an audio-visual installation to be shown at St Clement's Church by the waterfront.

It includes conversations with fishermen exploring the relationship between people and the sea, especially in light of technological and political changes.

There is also a chance to go for a walk with Mr Pozlep on the Shotley peninsula.

Artist Mark Pozlep developed his piece Leviathan whilst walking the length of the Suffolk coast

The Spill programme was revealed at a launch event at St Stephen's Church in Ipswich on Thursday.

Other performances include:

Monsters by Andy Field and Beckie Darlington - a post-apocalyptic fairy tale created by and starring children from East Anglia.

Port to Port by Sophie Giller - a textile artwork celebrating the historic maritime communities of Lowestoft, Ipswich and Felixstowe.

Brown Babies by Kirsty Tallent - a workshop exploring experiences of children of African-American US servicemen (stationed in Suffolk since 1942) and white mothers.

Kaboom: The Art of Destruction by Live Art Denmark - a family performance recreating 18 famous acts of artistic destruction.

The first Spill Festival of Performance was created by Ipswich artist Robert Pacitti and held in London in 2007.

It then alternated between the capital and Ipswich, with the organisation basing itself in the Think Tank, inside the former Ipswich School of Art building adjacent to Ipswich Museum, on Upper High Street.

Mr Pacitti curated 10 Spill Festivals (2007 - 2021) with Robin Deacon appointed as Spill's subsequent artistic director.

In 2018, Spill included Clarion Call, a musical "sonic artwork" commemorating the 100th anniversary of the end of World War One, which was played across the town's historic waterfront via 488 loudspeakers and a helicopter.