Kind Canterbury
At the beginning of the Coronavirus lockdown in April 2020, People United invited those living and working in Canterbury, Herne Bay, Whitstable, and the surrounding areas to take part in a collaborative online project. Kind Canterbury asked people to capture acts of kindness and to tell us about everyday heroes doing wonderful things – big and small – across our local community.
We invited associate artist Nova Marshall to reflect on the community’s contributions and bring everyone’s stories and artworks together to create a new community artwork, capturing the generosity, compassion and kindness of people at a unique moment in our history.
As a collaborative participatory artist much of the work I produce involves others. I took time to digest all of the submissions to the Kind Canterbury project, and from the start it was clear that COVID-19 was at its heart. People shared their thoughts about how time had slowed down, how their lives had changed and how they started to really think about what was important. Nova Marshall, Artist
Over 100 submissions were sent in from the community and compiled into an elaborate textile piece. The artwork titled Museum of Us was displayed at The Beaney House of Art and Knowledge as part of their Museum of You exhibition and also reproduced on a large vinyl in a busy street in the city centre, supported by Canterbury Business Improvement District (BID).
Funded by
Canterbury City Council