Nicola Lisle talks to Isabel Knowland of the Oxford Concert Party

If you head down to Bonn Square next Sunday afternoon, you could be in for a big surprise.

A flotilla of thousands of tiny paper boats will be flowing across the square from the Tirah Memorial, representing the journeys people have made to and from the United Kingdom over several centuries.

There will also be live music from the East Oxford Community Choir, the Jericho Singers and other local choirs.

The event is the culmination of a six-month creative arts project, Waving Hello, which was set up by the Oxford Concert Party to challenge preconceptions about refugees and to explore the influence of trade and travel on Western art.

Since January, local musicians, visual artists, poets and storytellers have been working with children from four Oxfordshire primary schools and with adult refugees and asylum seekers through organisations such as Refugee Resource, Freedom from Torture and Campsfield House.

“All this really started over a year ago,” says Isabel Knowland, who co-founded the Oxford Concert Party with husband ARne Richards in 1992.

“I got quite depressed about the national and international situation, and particularly the Brexit vote, and I felt that there was a lot of racism seeping upwards in that campaign. I was really quite upset about that.

“I was in the Ashmolean one day looking around, and I thought if it weren’t for the exchange of ideas, and trade and travel and movement of people, this museum actually wouldn’t be here. So I thought, I really want to do something about this.”

With funding from the Patsy Wood Trust, the project began with children visiting the Ashmolean Museum and using the displays to inspire their own stories and works of art.

“We looked at the idea of travelling, and they were particularly intrigued by the camel, so ARne came up with a lovely song, I’m a Mammal called a Camel, which they just loved.

“We got them to think about what it is to be a refugee, to have to leave your country for whatever reason. Children are incredibly imaginative, and incredibly empathetic, and they produced some lovely work.

“We had eight sessions for each school, the last session being a performance with a hundred children from three schools. They were brilliant and loved doing it.”

Isabel also worked with adult groups, including detainees at Campsfield House as well as ladies from BK Luwo, a women’s refugee group based in East Oxford.

“I’m very proud because I feel we have tried to make a difference, and I think that’s what music and art is about in its most profound sense,” Isabel says.

She hopes as many people as possible will come to Bonn Square at 1pm on June 25 to sing along and add to the boats.

“ARne has written a wonderful song called Waving Hello, so that will be like a celebration of the whole thing and hopefully it will reach out to people. We want to encourage people to come along on the day, learn to make their boat or make it before they come.

“We’re putting the song on Facebook so people can learn it if they want to sing along. It would be lovely to get loads of people coming along to join in and have a good time.”

Oxford Concert Party: Waving Hello

Bonn Square, Oxford

Sunday 25th June, 12pm-4pm (singing at 1pm)

Details: www.oxfordconcertparty.org/Waving-Hello