Live In Hope Project Information
What are you trying to find out?
Donna (the artist/researcher) wants to know more about what forms individual hopes and wishes are taking in a contemporary society that is shifting and transforming in reaction to the Covid-19 pandemic.
What will happen as part of the project?
You will be invited to submit via email or by phone (if you can’t do email) a description of your ‘wish’ Donna will reflect on your wish and may ask you some questions via email (or phone) to help inform her creative process. Donna will then create a new artwork based from the information you have shared. Once the artwork is completed, she will post the artwork in the form of a small print for you to have and to keep. Please note Donna and the Storyhouse’s Artistic Director Alex Clifton reserve the right to reject your ‘wish’ if we feel that it would cause harm of offence to others in a public environment.
Once you have received the artwork in the post Donna will contact you again and check if you are still happy to have a duplicate of the new work publicly exhibited. It is OK if you do not wish to join in any future exhibitions, you get to keep the new artwork either way.
Donna will also check if you are willing to offer her some feedback to reflect about how this project made you feel. Again, you don’t need to do this if you don’t want to, the main thing is we want you to enjoy the process of visualising your wish. In the future, when it is safe to do so we may also invite you to join in a free creative workshop in the Storyhouse, Chester.
Why do you want me to take part?
Storyhouse and I understand that living through the Covid-19 pandemic has caused/is causing some major upheavals in individuals lives and our mental and emotional lives are similarly being challenged/tested/changed. The project team want to create a positive creative process that will provide you with a prompt to reflect internally whilst also creating something back to you; tangible in the form of a collaborative artwork. We believe that materialising an internal wish/want/hope can provide you with a marker to reflect further upon. Once the collaborative making has concluded we would also like to hear what you thought of the artwork, the process and how the project made you feel.
Will anyone know I’ve taken part in the research?
You are, of course, free to share details of your participation and the artwork once you have it, but we will not tell anyone you took part in the project; your name and personal details will be kept confidential. There will be no distinctive/identifiable features used in the artwork nor as part of any exhibition of the images. If you provided feedback your comments will also be anonymised.
How do I know that you’re going to keep my information safely?
Your personal details alongside and your feedback comments will be stored on an encrypted hard drive that will be kept in a locked cupboard by Donna, only she will have access to these files and will not share your personal information with any other parties. After 5 years these files will be deleted.
What’s going to happen after you’ve done this project?
We will use the description of your wish, the artwork and your feedback comments to help us understand the role of hope/ function of wishes, this insight may feed into the ideas that Donna is developing in her project ‘To Have & To Hold’ a project that will be exhibited in the Storyhouse in the future.
Donna will also reflect and report on the project findings to other artists, designers and researchers through journal articles and conference papers. She may also use this to apply for funding to further research – in all cases your input will be completely anonymised.
What if I don’t want to take part?
You don’t have to take part in the project. Just don’t reply to the original invite to participate. It’s not going to be a problem.
What if I change my mind once I have already started to take part?
You can change your mind at any time by simply contacting Donna (either by email or if need be by phone). Please note that once the artwork has been exhibited online Donna will not be able to remove the artwork made in response to your wish from the public domain.
If, you received your wish and have changed your mind about taking part in feedback then that’s OK. You might have started off wanting to talk to Donna, but you don’t now. Or perhaps first of all you didn’t want to talk but now you do. It’s fine, just let Donna know.
OK, I think I want to take part.
Submit your wish by email to Donna using the title ‘Live In Hope’ at d.leishman@northumbria.ac.uk. Donna will email you back, then reflect and create an original work of art just for you. She will post this to your home, for you to keep as a symbol of your wishes at this unique moment. Submissions open immediately and will close on August 31st.
I want to know even more about the research.
If you have any further questions Donna will be happy to answer them. Contact Donna by emailing d.leishman@northumbria.ac.uk
I want to complain about the project or report something about the project I’m unhappy with.
You should tell Donna. If you’re not happy to do that, please tell Jayne Wallace at jayne.wallace@northumbria.ac.uk and she will pass on your worry to a member of the research team at Northumbria University.
