Maryborough’s museums and heritage groups have come together to celebrate the Fraser Coast’s heritage as part of the annual National Trust Heritage Festival 18 April – 19 May 2021.

The month-long calendar features a dozen local events, including a free Urban Sketching weekend and exhibition, various keynote speakers, animation workshops and a cemetery tour.

Mayor George Seymour said The Australian Heritage Festival was an opportunity for our region to celebrate its rich heritage with the rest of Australia.

“This is an opportunity to celebrate our heritage, our communities, our diversity and creativity in bringing heritage to life at historical locations, in nature, in performance and digitally,” he said.

“We are bringing people together from across the country, from all walks of life, and for those who have enjoyed discovering heritage for a long time or are just taking their first steps to do so,” he said.

“The spirit of  on location sketching is that if you are actually there you can feel how people use the environment and I find there is a freshness to the drawing compared to something drawn from a photograph.”

Brisbane Urban Sketcher Peter Richards said the Heritage City was a favourite location for sketchers and he was looking forward to connecting with the community during the festival.

With three official sketching sessions to register for Mr Richards said it was an opportunity for artists of all levels and ages to have a go or watch others with paint and pencils fill in their surrounds.

“I love seeing what other people find interesting when you go to a place. You could have six artists looking at the same location but each one does a completely different drawing of the viewpoint,” he said.

A limited number of tickets will not be a barrier for you to catch any of the captivating talks taking place over the event.

Mayor George Seymour will be sharing insight of P.L. Travers’ lesser known works at The Story Bank and a handful of local storytellers including Ian Brown, Greig Bolderrow and Carmel Murdoch will spend an evening in the basement of the Bond Store recalling short stories that shaped Maryborough.

Both these events will be Premiered on Council’s Facebook and YouTube channel 24 hours after the live event.

For a full list of events and all the registration details go to portside.ourfrasercoast.com.au/homepage/8/heritage-festival.

Article and photo provided by the Fraser Coast Regional Council