Artists meet participant-collaborators in their homes to co-create sensory objects that bring the East Kent coast to those who can't access it

People United have commissioned three socially engaged artists; Maggie Huiming Yang, Louise Beer and Rachel Ella Taylor, to work with socially isolated individuals in their homes, to co-design objects to evoke an immersive experience of the East Kent coastline.

The objects will be explored and playfully reproduced in Social Prescribing groups and care homes, before going into 20 artist-made wellbeing boxes and distributed to other socially isolated individuals across East Kent via our charity partners; the Kent Community Wardens Service and Age UK Herne Bay & Whitstable.

To kick of the project the artists gathered at Newgate Gap Beach in Margate for a Coastal Immersion session led by coastal permaculture group Flints. The purpose of the session was to connect and gather inspiration before meeting the collaborators.

photo of nine people sitting in a circle on blankets on the beach. A wind breaker and awning are providing shade and one person is addressing the group while reading from a notebook.
Several people sit around a bowl of water, the East Kent coast is within view behind them, as well as a bright blue sky.
Radical Gifting Beach Immersion Day
Photo of a chalk board propped up next to the shoreline with the logos for Flints and People United drawn on it and a shedule for a Coastal Immersion Session. Welcome and tea, opening circle, depths of the tides, inter-tidal observation, combing the waves, coastal crafting, closing circle, lunch

This project asks how we might work together to explore the potential impact of “Radical gifting,” referring to the act of offering a gift without expectation of receiving anything in return. Radical Gifting is designed around gift making and receiving, with the aim of fostering wellbeing and generating interconnectedness with/between people experiencing social isolation.

It builds on our 2022 project, Soft Fascination, conceived collaboratively with artist Selina Thompson.

You can find out more about the artists we’re working with here.

 

For this commission we’ve partnered with coastal permaculture group Flints, Kent County Council Community Wardens and Barton Court Care Home.

Radical Gifting is made possible thanks to funding from Age UK, Canterbury City Council, Kent Community Foundation from Kent Reliance Provident Society , Kent County Council, Paul Hamlyn Foundation, The Philip and Connie Phillips Foundation.

Group 930