This short film captures some of our widening work with children and young people in South West London. In partnership with Achieving for Children and CAMHS (Children and Adolescent Mental Health Services) we've been working to provide young people the time and space to make art - generously funded by One Richmond, and with sessions taking place in Hampton Court Palace and Kew Gardens earlier this year.
Watch the film to hear from the young people and facilitators about the impact of the sessions, and to see their art-making in action.
Video transcript
[Voiceover from lead artist]: This has been an amazing project to work on as a lead artist with Art & Soul, from identifying that there was a real need with young people to help them cope with some of the mental health challenges they were facing during lockdown, and to be able to help them express themselves through creativity and working together.
Two themes really emerged and grew out of the projects, and they would be collaboration – so the young people working together as well as Natasha from Achieving for Children and partners like Hampton Court Palace – and all of these things coming together to make art. And nature - so we tried to get outdoors as much as possible, and really think about how nature can really benefit your wellbeing, and that was a big theme throughout all of the projects.
[Voice of Young Person 1]: We’ve been doing print work.
[Voice of Young Person 2]: I’ve done storyboarding.
[Voice of Young Person 3]: Most of us have drawn frogs, or flowers. It’s like, a shared experience of all of us – we love frogs.
[Voice of lead artist to young people]: Let’s make a composition on the grass, and we can work together and see what happens. Maybe make patterns. And then you can use the pencils, maybe do some drawing and painting.
[Voiceover from lead artist]: Whether it was getting art materials with instructions in the post, or getting one big pack, and then we did the activities together online, it was a real highlight of the project to meet them in person and make together.