Make Sense
Kentish Town Health Centre
With the help of funding from Camden Giving, our workshops at the Kentish Town Health Centre have now being running for a year. This regularity has provided a vital space for its older attendees to express themselves individually, but more recently has cemented the group’s confidence to work with each other collaboratively.
This set of workshops has seen the introduction of Lottie as a volunteer, who has enabled the participants to receive more one-to-one attention, while also allowing for the complexity of the artistic processes to increase. For instance we have facilitated marbling paper with lots of previous groups, however in this set of workshops it has been able to feature across multiple sessions in the form of an evolving sculpture, that the participants can assemble and disassemble each week.
The ten sessions have seen us explore some new processes such as painting with blackberries, paper tearing, clay impressions inspired by hieroglyphics, collaging with leaves from the health centre’s garden, paper marbling into sculpture, monoprinting with self-made rollers, drawing to prompts and making dumplings from clay. We were even able to visit an exhibition at the Hayward Gallery. We have also enjoyed an element of co-facilitation, shown by those participants who move quicker through the processes, suggesting new ways of exploring the processes further. A good example of this was during the paper tearing workshop, where Richard captivated the group by using his paper three-dimensionally to create shadows. This part of the workshop was not planned but added a significant shared element of excitement.
With the most recent number of participants at 14, we are hopeful to start running the workshops weekly as opposed to fortnightly. This would undoubtedly give the participants wanting to attend more, some increased consistency in their weekly routine. But for those who fortnightly is enough, this will open up more space for us to engage with new participants dropping-in via the James Wigg Practice.
“
Melissa’s sessions are wonderfully adventurous, with her pleasant personality, she is fully equipped with unusual materials that open up creative pathways, in an accessible way for the participants” Karen
Carer of Anya
We are also pleased to share that from the 18–24 March, work from these workshops will be exhibited at All is Joy, on Dean Street in Soho. We will present the work as a group, showcasing a selection of the processes we have explored. It will feature alongside other artwork that has been created within Kentish Town Health Centre.
This project has been made possible by Camden Giving.
