Donate to help me support vulnerable adults creating art

Hi, my name is Elaine and I am an inclusive arts practitioner and in lockdown I lost all my work teaching vulnerable adults. The Hope dress was born out of a desire to bring people together at a time when we were very much apart. I invited many vulnerable groups to write on up-cycled fabric strips donated by London College of Fashion, helped by my wonderful Intern Eve and my Mother Joyce, who cut up over 1000 strips of fabric and helped post them out to groups. Myself and other artists ran workshops that taught participants new skills and everyone involved wrote words of hope onto the strips of fabric. The final sculpture, with over 500 voices woven into the fabric of the piece, has toured the UK including the Resilience forum in Blackpool.

I have just received additional Arts council funding for my project ‘Hope - weaving communities together’ but there is a shortfall.

I will be taking some of my original participants from vulnerable groups, who were involved in writing on strips of fabric and helping me weave the dress, to see the dress sculpture at the prestigious Venice Biennale. I will be supporting them to bring back ideas and run workshops with their own communities and show the resulting work in exhibitions in Kent and London.

By supporting this project you are helping me support participants to lead workshops and exhibit the artwork made, enabling them to be seen and have their voices heard in a high art context.