Community Project (2025)
A Display of Emotion was a creative wellbeing project delivered across Medway, working with three community groups: Peer Arts, CAMEO (Come And Meet Each Other), and Craft Club. The project invited participants to explore personal memories and the emotions attached to them, and then entrusted those memories to other groups to interpret and reimagine through visual art illustrations.
Art workshops explored the basics of illustration and how to portray various emotions, as well as introducing them to a wide range of materials, from collage and paint to clay and printing, allowing participants to choose the medium that best suited them. Participants then used these new skills and knowledge to illustrate someone else's story. This creative process encouraged participants not just to make art, but to actively imagine and interpret the lived experiences of someone else. The project culminated in an exhibition, at The Salvation Army, Gillingham, as part of Medway Open Studios, as a celebration of the stories we have shared, the skills we have learnt and the fun we had throughout the project.
The exhibition was part of the Medway Open Studios programme. Medway Open Studios Arts Festival offers a free art trail with fascinating studios to visit. Now in our 12th year, our open studios trail regularly attracts over 25 venues to visit, and work on show by over 200 artists, including painting, printmaking, jewellery, ceramics, photography, textiles, illustration and animation.
www.medwayopenstudios.org
This exhibition is part of the EVOLVE programme funded by Medway Council.