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Kind Places & Spaces by Bernadette Russell © Sadie Cook and Gareth Brierley

Blue skies, jetpacks and hope

Blue skies, jetpacks and hope by Bernadette Russell is one of six micro-commissions from People United’s Kind Places & Spaces project that took place during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
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Bernadette is an author, storyteller and artist. Blue skies, jetpacks and hope is a series of hand-drawn billboard posters that offer stories of kindness, creativity and connection, ancient wisdom, inspiring questions, and tales of those who have triumphed over adversity.

The posters pivot text-based adverts we regularly encounter on the street by asking the public a series of ‘big’ questions that encourage reflection, debate and hopefulness.

In the words of the great Ben Okri “stories can conquer fear… they make the heart bigger” – so part of my intention is to get people to talk with each other about their experience of lockdown and their hopes for the future, to be vulnerable with each other in a way that increases the chance of a deeper connection by sharing stories and ideas, which these images and words provoke. Bernadette Russell

Collaborating with Sadie Cook (design/photo) and Gareth Brierley (photos) the posters were presented online with the posters being digitally imposed on bus stops, telephone boxes and street walls.

Photo of a bus stop with a shelter made of glass panes and a roof, with one of the shorter sides being a billboard. A young child is standing facing away from the camera looking at the billboard, which has an illustration of a sun and clouds with a hill and footpath underneath. The billboard has text but the text is not legible at this distance.
Kind Places & Spaces by Bernadette Russell © Sadie Cook and Gareth Brierley
Photo of a public phone box on a street outside a restaurant. The top pane of glass on the door has a poster on it with the text
Kind Places & Spaces by Bernadette Russell © Sadie Cook and Gareth Brierley
Kind Places & Spaces by Bernadette Russell © Sadie Cook and Gareth Brierley
Kind Places & Spaces by Bernadette Russell
Kind Places & Spaces by Bernadette Russell
Kind Places & Spaces by Bernadette Russell
Illustration with the title:
Kind Places & Spaces by Bernadette Russell
Illustration of a lower leg wearing a stripy sock and a shoe. Text next to the leg reads
Kind Places & Spaces by Bernadette Russell
An illustration of a large yellow sun with wavy rays extending in all directions and four clouds. Text on the sun reads
Kind Places & Spaces by Bernadette Russell
An illustration of a sun and clouds above a footpath on a grassy hill. Text in the clouds reads
Kind Places & Spaces by Bernadette Russell

Funded by

Canterbury City Council