This HE High Street Heritage Action Zone commissioned project will generate massive portraits promoting sports and wellbeing by engaging local people. We want them to consider Huddersfield’s history through lion mask-making workshops. There are over 150 sculpted lions in the town centre.

Chris Marsden, architectural historian and Laura Mateescu, University of Huddersfield research student and photographer, invite local people to join them making lion masks.
The workshops are a key part of The Joy of a Roar.
With support from mask makers Laura & Chris, you can make a lion mask with card, paper & your imagination. All materials and tools are provided.
The 2 ½ hour bookable workshops are free, everybody 12+ are welcome. Under 18s need to be accompanied by an adult.
We have developed a mask style that is easy to make, adapt and wear, that is dramatic for photography.
We are making masks to be worn during a photo shoot in a local studio. Local people with lion masks will be photographed in sport, dance or play. These ’lion’ portraits will be exhibited larger than life on Huddersfield town centre streets.
We hope many of the masks will go on display in local businesses windows too.
Chris and Laura appreciate how the lion is a well-known symbol of Huddersfield’s heritage, which also represents agility, strength, fierceness, courage, leadership and community pride.
Symbolically, the lion highlights Huddersfield’s diversity and will engage local people by building connections between the town, its history and town-centre users, promoting fun and community-making, placing creative activities at the heart of the project, bringing a sense of ownership through making and crafting and promoting health & wellbeing through arts and physical activity.