Inspire has received a Highly Commended recognition in the Legacy Award category at The Big Draw Awards 2025, celebrating the outstanding impact and lasting legacy of its Big Draw 2025 digital community project.
Inspire, which runs culture, learning and libraries on behalf of Nottinghamshire County Council, delivers varied arts and cultural programmes in the local community and provides resources and activities to support them.
The Big Draw Festival takes place annually and celebrates creativity, community and connection through drawing across a range of organisations and communities worldwide. At the centre of Inspire’s 2025 project was Leaf Number Three, a virtual reality (VR) film created from drawings of oak leaves made by community groups across Nottinghamshire.
The film explores themes of connection and individuality; being together but separate, the same but different, using the motif of leaves on a tree, accompanied by a poetic audio narrative.
The workshops, illustration and animation were delivered by My Pockets, with the immersive VR experience created by Neon8. The project brought together artwork from a wide range of local groups including the Places of Welcome groups from Beeston, Mansfield, Eastwood and Arnold Libraries, Middle Street Resource Centre Art Group, Beeston Canalside Heritage Centre – Knit and Craft Social Group for MIND, Rainworth Youth Group, Beeston ESOL Group and Clipstone Scout Group.
This recognition comes as The Big Draw celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2025 with the theme “Drawn Together”, highlighting how creativity unites us and how collaboration and connection are at the heart of making.
An exhibition celebrating the creation of Leaf Number Three toured Inspire libraries from October last year to March 2026, accompanied by a travelling VR programme for families and young people. This was made possible through Digital Spaces, an ambitious national initiative developed in association with Arts Council England, BFI and The Space that delivered a range of cutting-edge digital experiences across nine library services in the UK. These included two immersive virtual reality tours and a VR masterclass led by Neon8, which ran alongside Inspire’s own VR film commission as part of The Big Draw 2025.
Peter Gaw, INSPIRE, Chief Executive commented:
“We’re thrilled to receive a Highly Commended recognition by the Big Draw! This was an ambitious project and showed the power of drawing to connect communities across generations while embracing digital platforms. At the heart was making community voices heard and leaving a lasting impact through film that people can return to again and again, and we are proud to say we achieved that!”.
Helen Ackroyd, INSPIRE, Libraries and Culture Manager, added:
“We are delighted to have been Highly Commended for The Big Draw Legacy Award for our VR film Leaf Number Three. We went on a steep learning curve with the VR part of this project as did many of our participants, but by rooting it in drawing together the collective voices brought through into the animation and film with our wonderful digital partners are a celebration of what brings us together and we love it.”
Further information about Inspire’s 2025 Big Draw project and VR film Leaf Number Three, can be found at The Big Draw 2025: Drawn Together | Inspire – Culture, Learning, Libraries
Watch the trailer for Leaf Number Three:
https://youtu.be/FlcawKrzZPc?si=OWuJnSvypFa-LbcR
Posted on 02 June 2026
