Ev’ry Stitch in the Quilt: An interactive digital exhibition created by people with Parkinson’s
Organisations
Cohere Arts is a community interest company providing opportunities for communities to engage with arts, culture and heritage through original performance works, participation in creative and cultural activities, education, training and professional development rooted in the creative arts.
Project
An online creative project, inspired by themes from an opera about the legendary Margaret Catchpole from Suffolk.
In one scene a character sings about the passing of the seasons as she weaves fabric squares together into a quilt. This project engaged people living with Parkinsons from all over the UK in the creation of a ‘digital quilt’; an online exhibition containing visual, audio, spoken and written word artworks.
https://coherearts.org/home/projects/herstory
Participants
Around 15 persons living with Parkinson’s Disease, most of retirement age.
Key persons
Nicola Wydenbach, soprano, musical director, and vocal coach
Amy Mallett, Artistic Director, Cohere Arts
Project outcomes
An interactive “digital quilt” online exhibition showcasing the diverse creative talents of the Parkinson’s community
An opportunity for the Cohere Arts creative team to improve their digital skills and go beyond mental barriers regarding digital work
Enabled co-creators living with Parkinson’s to gain confidence singing.
Approach
Ev’ry Stitch in the Quilt originated as part of HerStory, a participatory performing arts project that aimed to develop performance opportunities for people living with Parkinson’s while celebrating their artistry and raising the profile of the positive impact of arts participation. Following the creation of the operatic work HerStory: The Catchpole Chronicles, the company was offered a community residency to further develop the work at London’s Royal Opera House in 2020. When the residency was cancelled as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, the company put together the short film HerStory: The Covid Chronicles, followed by Ev’ry Stitch in the Quilt in April 2021.
Ev’ry Stitch in the Quilt was inspired by some of the themes present in HerStory: The Catchpole Chronicles. In the opera, one of the characters sings about the passing of the seasons as she weaves fabric squares together into a quilt. Working from the theme of seasons, co-creators completed a range of online workshops and remote art challenges featuring dance, singing, creative writing, visual arts and textiles workshops.
The artworks were created throughout nine 60-minute online workshops. During the Zoom workshops, co-creators danced, sang and developed characters inspired by scenes from the opera and were set specific creative tasks, such as “Write a postcard to Margaret Catchfold”, “Paint a tulip” or “Make a tapestry of a boat”, that they were free to complete in their own time. Twenty-four resulting artworks were woven into a “digital quilt” made up of squares that viewers could click on to discover visual, audio, spoken and written word pieces.
Results
Working online enabled the company to involve a geographically diverse group of participants from London, Suffolk, Essex, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire and include people who would have been unable to attend in-person workshops for health reasons. The project enabled both the creative team and participants to maintain connections and keep the creative juices flowing. According to one participant: ““It’s given me confidence and reduced isolation. It’s given me new friendships. It’s given me something to look forward to. It’s given me happiness and a sense of something achieved”. The project also enabled the co-creators to become more confident in their singing: “I never thought I’d sing and now I have recorded myself singing.”
From the creative team’s perspective, Ev’ry Stitch in the Quilt was “liberating and eye-opening”. The team had to build up their confidence in working creatively online and getting to grips with the technology, but were eventually able to “develop the ability to capture and showcase our participants’ voices and contributions really effectively.”
Following Ev’ry Stitch in the Quilt, the company received funding to support another online creative project Herstory: Turning the Tide. People with Parkinson’s were invited to join five online workshops in which they created artwork, written material, movement, sound and music around the themes of transportation, transition and journeys. These were then used to create a short art film.
Lessons learned
Be flexible! Working online requires patience and the ability to think outside the box and seek workarounds. Facilitators shouldn’t feel held back by their tech skills - these will naturally progress - or feel the need to compare themselves to others. The digital quilt was created using Wix, a website builder that offers design services based on drag-and-drop tools and templates.
Keep an open mind. The team encouraged participants to work with artforms they were comfortable with, either trying something new, or developing existing interests. For example, one co-creator might record a monologue of one of the characters in the story, another their daily walk, another may create textiles.