Our Work / Archive / Letters from the Edge

Letters from the Edge

2017/18

Project Partner: Tullie House Museum & Art Gallery Trust

Artform: Visual Art, Theatre

Funders: Cumbria Community Foundation and Heritage Lottery Fund

Participants: Creative Conversations, Year 10/11 students from Distington School

This extraordinary project brought together our Creative Conversations group of stroke survivors and young people from Distington Community School in Whitehaven in an intergenerational celebration of storytelling.

The project was inspired by Percy Kelly, a West Cumbrian artist, known for his paintings and illustrated letters. Participants visited Tullie House to see works by Kelly and learn more about his life. The members of each group then wrote illustrated letters to one another sharing childhood memories.

Through reading, watching and listening to the stories, participants were able to look beyond their own difficulties and empathise with each other’s lives. Feedback from everyone who took part stressed how transformative the experience was, and how it helped them bond as a group and look at life from new a perspective.

The project resulted in an exhibition and performance at Tullie House Museum and Art Gallery, a limited-edition collection of postcards which were on sale in Tullie House during the exhibition and an accompanying book.