Art by Post: Of Home and Hope
Thursday 3 February – Saturday 19 February 2022
The Southbank Centre’s Art by Post project launched in May 2020 to provide free creative activities to people across the UK at risk of social isolation, loneliness and digital exclusion. The project commissioned 17 artists to make 11 activity booklets, sent to over 4500 participants with the help of numerous referral partners. A network of delivery partners and referral partners were central to the project, including Leicester Musical Memory Box and Beaumanor Care Home, who referred participants from Leicester and surrounding areas. More than 600 poems, drawings, paintings and mixed media works were posted back in response.
Art by Post: Of Home and Hope brings together a selection of artworks first exhibited at the Southbank Centre in September. The exhibition was organised around three key themes: Nature, Sound & Movement and Hope. These categories emerged from the activity booklets and the submitted artworks. However, they also illustrate the basic needs that continue to be vital to us all – green spaces, music, dance, physical activity and people to share experiences with. Elements of the exhibition are here at Leicester Gallery as part of the national tour.
Simultaneously, the online exhibition on the Southbank Centre’s website showcases the full collection of over 600 artworks, audio recordings of participants reading their poems and films that tell the Art by Post story from the perspective of the participants. The exhibition makes visible the spirit and talent of the participants and the dedicated artists and organisations that have supported them.
The Art by Post exhibition and national tour is delivered in partnership with the National Academy for Social Prescribing, with additional support from the Granada Foundation.
The Art by Post project is supported by Paul Hamlyn Foundation. Project delivery partners are Age UK Oxfordshire and Camden, artsdepot, The Barn, Beacon Arts Centre, Dulwich Picture Gallery, HOME, King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, NAPA Arts in Care Homes, Nightingale Hammerson, Philharmonia Orchestra, Platform and Sunderland Culture.
The exhibition tour continues to HOME in Manchester.
Please visit southbankcentre.co.uk/artbypost to view the full range of artworks by
our participants.
