Celebrate the Year of the Horse with hands-on art workshops for kids, adults, and families. Join in the fun and let your creativity shine this Chinese New Year!
Saturday 21 February & Sunday 22 February, 11am – 5pm.
Family Workshop Zone, Nelson Street, Chinatown.
Design Laser Play – Horse Parade:
A creative and engaging Make + Take arts workshop celebrating the Chinese New Year of the Horse 2026.
Among the Chinese zodiac animals, the horse represents energy, optimism and adventure. In 2026, the Fire Horse takes centre stage—known for its confident spirit and its association with happiness and prosperity. In this workshop, participants will create a bold and colourful parade of fiery horses to carry proudly through the weekend’s Lunar New Year celebrations.
Using pre-prepared laser‑cut card templates, participants can craft their own unique designs, adding hand‑cut decorative shapes, vibrant patterns, and flamboyant fiery manes and tails. Once decorated, the card shapes are folded into a distinctive three‑dimensional horse and finished with a loop of black twine, allowing each creation to dangle, sway and come to life as it moves through the festivities.
Beeswax Candle Making and Incense Cone Making with Andrea Ku and Sufea Mohamad Noor:
Delivered by Liverpool-based artists who are part of the Liverpool East & South East Asian Network (LESEAN) and wider ESEA community, this workshop celebrates Lunar New Year through hands‑on creativity.
Participants will explore ESEA culture and heritage in a fun, engaging and educational session where they can craft their own beeswax candle or create a naturally scented incense cone. This interactive workshop offers a meaningful way to connect with tradition while making something beautiful to take home!
Pagoda Arts:
Try your hand at traditional arts and crafts by creating your own paper‑folded horse. Alongside the activity, the team will also be demonstrating the Chinese Tea Ceremony, a practice that dates back to the Tang Dynasty (618–907).
This elegant ceremony began as a way for couples to honour their parents and grandparents by serving them tea, symbolising deep respect, gratitude and the acknowledgment of those who guided and supported them through life.
Tea ceremony demonstrations will take place at scheduled times throughout the day and have limited capacity.
Unusual Arts Sourcing:
This accessible, family‑friendly activity is designed to be fun for people of all ages.
Participants will discover more about the many traditions associated with Chinese New Year while celebrating the 2026 Year of the Horse.
During the workshop, families can create their own horse puppet or horse lever toy, decorating it in the style of traditional Chinese paper‑cut designs. The result is a vibrant, eye‑catching creation to proudly take home.
Zap Graffiti:
Join the Zap Graffiti team for a series of drop‑in graffiti art workshops running across both days.
Inspired by the Chinese New Year theme of the Year of the Horse, these fun, hands‑on sessions invite you to experiment with bold colours and creative techniques. Create your own unique design and print it onto a tote bag to take home as a vibrant keepsake from the celebrations!
BNO Hub:
Let your creativity run wild and join BNO Hub to make your own beautiful hand‑held hobby horse. Using simple, accessible materials, you’ll craft a decorative horse head mounted on a stick—taking inspiration from the charm of traditional hobby horses.
A fun, imaginative activity suitable for all ages.
Dot Rogers:
Get ready for some hands‑on creative magic! Join Dot to make your very own Pop‑Up Paper Engineering Galloping Horse – a fantastic moving creation you can take home and proudly show off.
This playful paper‑mechanism activity is suitable for all ages, with a simplified version available to make sure everyone can join in the fun. Expect colour, movement and plenty of joyful crafting as your horse comes to life with every gallop!
Little Vintage Photography:
An exciting workshop using paper, postcards and bookmarks, to make unique ‘photogram’ cyanotype sunprints!
Families will experience and learn about the entire traditional process of using light (and a bit of magic!) to create sunprints and how that connects with the theme of light and the Lunar New Year. Children and families can also build a pinhole viewer using card, tape, tinfoil and tracing paper, to explore China Town in a way they never have before!
Bubbletree:
Celebrating the Year of the Horse, join the artist for a joyful, hands-on Lunar New Year craft workshop where families can create their very own Little Horse Shaker, celebrating energy, creativity, and shared fun.
Participants will use colourful paper plates, design paper, ribbons, jingle bells, craft pipe cleaners, and stickers to create a cheerful horse-shaped shaker, embracing the festive spirit of the Lunar New Year.
Liverpool East South East Asian Network:
Join members of the Liverpool East and South East Asian Network to learn about and play cultural games from around Asia, particularly East and Southeast Asia.
Including historical background about the games and information about East and Southeast Asian culture and traditions during Lunar New Year, network members will introduce several games to participants throughout the day. The games will be easy to play and suitable for all ages.
Saturday 21 February Only:
Mandarin Beeswax Candle Rolling
Start the Year of Horse by making a beautiful hand-rolled mandarin beeswax candle wrapped in your own horse printed paper. The activity uses 100% natural pure beeswax from Liverpool beehives and dried Mandarin peel. The candles will be wrapped in red or yellow recycled Christmas tissue printed with a horse stamp.
Liverpool Chinese Students & Scholars Association
LCSSA showcase the traditional “Year of the Horse”, with a series of activities to celebrate the Spring Festival with quick-to-join cultural experiences for local families and visitors of all ages. The activities include calligraphy experience, DIY Peking opera facial masks, fun chopsticks challenge, clay horse sculpture, and stencil printing experience.
Sunday 22 February Only:
100% Natural Incense Cone Making
Celebrate the Year of the Horse with a hands-on activity where you’ll make your own natural incense cone scented with citrus fruits and wrapped in your own horse printed paper.
The activity uses dried fruits to create 100% natural incense cones, which are then wrapped in brown packaging paper saved from Christmas, printed with horse prints in red ink.
Liverpool Confucius institute (LCI)
Back with us again for Chinese New Year 2026, the team from LCI will be on hand to show you the traditional Chinese arts of calligraphy and traditional handicrafts including papercutting, and woodblock prints for you to have a go and take away your own piece of art.
Other Activities:
Fabaroony Facepainting, Family Workshop Zone, Nelson Street, Chinatown.
The talented team from Fabaroony will be joining us to paint your little ones (or big ones!) faces with Lunar New Year themed animals and decorations. Charges apply for facepainting.
Bring the Fire Project – Circus Workshops, Great George Square, Nelson Street, Chinatown
On Saturday 21 February (12-2pm) and Sunday 22 February (11.30am – 12.30pm and 2-3pm), Bring the Fire Project will be providing circus workshops offering you the opportunity to learn to juggle, hula hoop, play with flower sticks, spin plates, use levitation sticks and dancing ribbons and many other skills.
The perfect way for the whole families to play together. Bring the Fire Project love sharing their passion and amusing audience with tricks.
