DRLC students contribute to Quarantine Quilt project

Posted by Devon Partnership Trust in Mental health, Recovery and wellbeing on 13th November, 2020

Students of the Devon Recovery Learning Community (DRLC), people who have used mental health services and those who have expressed their lived experience of getting through the COVID-19 pandemic, have all contributed towards the creation of a 'quarantine quilt'.

The Quarantine Quilt Project is an Arts Council COVID-19 Emergency fund initiative led by Significant Seams. It features three quilts made from colourful and meaningful patches contributed during the COVID-19 pandemic and artworks commissioned by Significant Seams from professional artists Naomi Wright, Melinda Schwakhofer, Just Sewn Stories, and Catherine West.

One DRLC student said: "I’m so grateful to have been part of the Quarantine Quilt Project, to have connected with you, and other students, online, to have spent precious “Zoom time” sharing a creative space with you all and being inspired by the techniques and ideas you so willingly shared with us throughout the first lockdown has kept me sane. What you brought to me was the most effective medicine I am so fortunate to have been administered."

The online exhibition of quilts explores themes of reflection and experience of the pandemic, and the role of creativity and wellbeing to our making and processing of difficult circumstances. This showcase is the culmination of an Arts Council England Project supported by Devon Community Foundation and Devon Recovery Learning Community.

Caroline Nicholson, Manager of Devon Recovery Learning Community, said: "Creativity has been a huge support for so many people during this time, and in fact is something that deserves greater recognition as a core element to our mental health and wellbeing, be it through music, art, craft, photography, dance, drama, writing, or digital media. Having access to any form of expression that uses our imagination, curiosity, playfulness and invention is powerful and healing."

Watch a video about the Quarantine Quilt Project here and listen to participants in the project share experiences of their involvement here.

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DRLC students contribute to Quarantine Quilt project

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