The Creative Friends project paired 380 people across Worcestershire to make artworks for one another, using creative exchange as a direct response to loneliness and social isolation.
Developed by Age UK Worcester and Malvern Hills with Spare Room Arts, the project expanded from a successful eight-person pilot created during the first lockdown in 2020.
Making art for someone else
Participants were paired and asked to create a work for their new creative friend on the theme My Happy Place. The exchange gave each person a clear audience and a personal reason to complete the work.
All materials were supplied, removing cost and the need for digital equipment. This was particularly important because the project had been designed during a period when many ordinary face-to-face activities were unavailable.
The artworks were shown at the Royal Porcelain Works in Worcester before being exchanged and taken to their new homes. The project had originally been scheduled to finish in March 2022, but continued until May because of the level of participation.
Creativity as a social connection
Organisers Fi Petts and Claire Thomas reported that more than half of the participants had described themselves as lonely. Making something for another person created a form of contact that did not depend on confidence with technology or on existing artistic experience.
The theme allowed each participant to interpret happiness through personal places, memories, colours and objects. The resulting display therefore represented hundreds of individual perspectives rather than a uniform workshop exercise.
A later gathering was planned so that participants could meet again, discuss the experience and create a collective work.
Creative Friends showed how an exhibition could document a social process rather than simply present finished objects. Its significance lay in the relationships formed through making, giving and receiving art.