Radical Gifting
A People United Project
Exploring the act of giving a gift without expecting anything in return
A box of artist-made sensory objects, designed in collaboration with community participants, to bring the coast to you.
Radical Gifting
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.
“The experience has reminded me how important conversational flow is to the process of co-creating, and to any socially engaged creative practice It has shaken my practice in an unexpected way and made me reflect deeply on the organic nature of creativity and its inseparable link to senses and interpersonal connections I have found that after the experience I myself feel a greater connection to the coast and feel inspired ”
– Maggie Huiming, Radical Gifting Artist 2023
This gift-box was made in collaboration with three supported community members. Each person was paired with an artist to develop items intended to bring the coast to the receiver. Lauri, Janey and Susan were invited to spend time with their artist to share, inspire and create.
During an intimate session of chat, sharing memories and exploring objects they worked closely together. The outcome was the series of gifts created by artists Sadie, Lo Lo and Elly to bring experiences of the coast to life, especially for those who may not be able to get there in person.
August Bank Holiday - a tune on an ice-cream cornet. A slap of sea and a tickle of sand. A fanfare of sunshades opening. A wince and whinny of bathers dancing into deceptive water. A tuck of dresses. A rolling of trousers. A compromise of paddlers. A sunburn of girls and a lark of boys. A silent hullabaloo of balloons.
- Dylan Thomas, Poet ,
Lo Lo No (they/them) is a trans-disciplinary artist, performer and producer Their art practice has a focus on self portraiture, theory and collage in the expanded field, revealing queer+ and trans+ phenomenology
Creating self-portraits and performing academic texts as an access tool, a way of seeing and becoming in a society where they have struggled to see them-self reflected As subject and object they are a site to explore and perform, embody and enchant self expression and process identity through discourse around transformation and psychoanalysis
Elly Rutherford is a socially engaged artist, dancer, performer and workshop facilitator based in Folkestone, Kent Working across participatory art, performance and installation, her playful, experimental practice is like a giant collage, combining different mediums together in site-specific settings Inspired by mindful curiosity in the everyday, her artworks respond and transform spaces with embodied experiences and quirky, tactile creations to alter perceptions and benefit well-being Exploring our connection with touch and the natural world, the importance of play for all, the psychology of making and performance in the everyday
Sadie Hennessy is a multi-disciplinary artist whose roots lie in collage, but has expanded her idea of collage to encompass the third and fourth dimensions, to create immersive environments and events, examining the zeitgeist and the world around me as she perceives it She is increasingly interested in working in non-gallery spaces on sitespecific projects Sadie’s work is always made with public engagement in mind, and an awareness of an audience is important to me She want to create ephemeral, memorable experiences that live on in people’s minds
Read the artists’ full biographies on our website at www.peopleunited.org.uk/stories/radical-gifting/radical-gifting-artists-2024/
Photo Credit: Neil Sloman
Photo Credit: Benjamin Eagle
“Janey was really engaged at the start of our 121 session when participating in my mindfulness exercise that focused on following the breath whilst listening to my sound recording of the sea in Folkestone. She said she loved the sound of the sea and I noticed it was calming for her and helped her to focus.
Janey was also interested in exploring the different materials which was a mixture of different beach finds, fabrics and found paper. The heat blanket was her favourite and she said she’d love it in her bedroom! We had great fun playing with it, adding in a deep, blue sheet of cellophane (her favourite colour), torch and kaleidoscope.”
- Elly Rutherford, Artist
A dose of the coast
The deep blue oasis of wonder
Sunlight glitters across the surface
Salty spray tickles the air
Dip and dive through the silky seas
Breathe with the rhythm of the waves
Watch the salsa dancing seaweed
Trace the curious coral on the rocks
Float, glide and be free…
You are invited to open this mermaid pouch
Reach inside for the sensory swatch of materials
Explore the colours, textures, reflections, shadows and sounds
Use the torch to shine through all the layers
Play with it on all the surfaces around you
Transform your space into an underwater world!
Elly’s contributions to the box include a swatch of sensory materials with a torch and a large foil heat blanket.
She invites you to shine the torch through the materials to transform your space into an underwater world and to create the sounds of the sea with the heat blanket.
Further instructions are attached to each item.
“What do you remember most about being by the sea? Being at peace, feeling at one and never feeling alone because you are with the spirit of the sea. Come on a walk with me, a conceptual walk, to take off our shoes and ground our soles and our souls. How can I take the ground from the coast inland, to be held and feel, maybe a little bit of that inner peace? I spent hours on the beach, sifting through dried up and wet seaweed and shrapnel of shells and chalk, eventually collecting a hoard of organic costal trinkets to create the mini vignettes of sea flora and shells and mermaids purses, cast in resin, transparent like the air and the spirit of the sea, not to be seen, but to be felt, to be held.”
- Lo Lo No, Artist
Swathes of grey
Grey stony shells
Husks of life
No more
Just a landscape
A pink ear
But it’s not an ear, it’s a shell
So many empty shells, thousands and millions, squillions of empty shells
Cuttle fish stranded in knots of knotted hair
That Is seaweed of many different mermaids
Imagine all the hair-brushing of the mermaids to produce this much spare hair
The wig makers would be beside themselves
But the hair doesn’t last outside of the sea, it becomes brittle
It is the sea that brings the beauty to the hair
Stains of stones stretched towards the shoreline
Stretched like wrinkles of time
Time which turns every twelve hours in and out of a new life
A life cycle of twelve hours and numerous moons
Sand underfoot
Rocks in the distance
Chalk graffiti on the wall
Big pebbles, small pebbles, chalk holes where worms and flies…dwell
Sacks of some sort
holding something strange inside
Something to be collected and discussed
Potential possibility of these shells that are now empty but once were so alive
Poor snail, po
Once so migh
But now dead
Like everythin walkers
Who relentles animal
To eventually
Sea laps cont
Maybe comp size that is hid
Lo Lo recording their poem and sounds of the seayou can listen by following this link:
‘”That's dinner, that is!" said Uncle Jack as he pulled the crab out from under the seaweed ’
"It
was important [to me], to create something really specific to my conversation with Lauri, but I hoped that however personal, to her, the end result was, it would hold a universal appeal, to everyone else, as a (radical) gift"
- Sadie Hennessy, Artist
