From 2020-21, we collaborated with Root Studio UK, writer Anna Selby and designer Ruth Pigott to create a Care Package to be sent through the post to every community participant with whom we should have been working during the time of the national Covid-19 lockdowns. This was part of our Imagination Museum: Mayflower 400 Strategic Touring project.
The Creative Care Packages were designed to get participants thinking about what life must have been like for the Mayflower passengers making a treacherous journey from England to America 400 years ago.
They included a letter written as if the recipient had set out on their own journey to an unknown destination (as we all had done during the time of the Covid lockdowns!), some historical information about the Mayflower and its passengers and a few treasures to help recipients respond to the story of that journey in their own ways. Some participants then chose to share what they were doing with us so that we could display their work in an online gallery we set up from 2020-21.
For an example of some of the materials the Creative Care Packages contained, you can view some of the content here and watch some of the linked 'how-to' videos we created below:
Project Credits
The Imagination Museum: Creative Care Package Project was managed by Made By Katie Green as part of The Imagination Museum: Mayflower 400 project (a Spirit of Mayflower 400 project), and was created collaboratively by choreographer Katie Green, writer Anna Selby, workshop designer Ruth Pigott and designers Root Studio, with additional writing and consultation from Jo Loosemore.
Evaluation by Elsa Urmston
Marketing support by Lucy White
Performer contributions to dance workshop videos from Sophie Douglas, Alice Shepperson and Lucy Starkey
Funded by the National Lottery through Arts Council England (Emergency Funding), West Lindsey District Council/Pilgrim Roots, and The Box, Plymouth.
Thanks also to all our partners who supported us in making sure the packages reached their recipients safely.
To find out more about the Mayflower 400 international commemoration, visit: https://www.mayflower400uk.org.