Togetherness was a participatory artmaking for wellbeing project with a United Mothers group in Margate. The project was led by Joy Martindale in partnership with Beyond The Page. It ran over four workshops and was held at Ark, Cliftonville’s Cultural Space. This was a lovely project to be part of!
The 14 participants in the project were members of Beyond The Page’s United Mothers community. United Mothers is a project open to all Thanet women, including British women speaking English as a first language. Beyond The Page works to meet the integration challenges facing women born outside the UK, aiming to increase their confidence as active citizens and parents.
The world needs
Togetherness, not
Separation. Love,
not suspicion.
A common future,
not isolation.
By Etel Adnan, Artist, Poet and Writer (1925-2021)
About the Project
The aims of Togetherness were to benefit wellbeing by providing an opportunity for participants to take time out from daily life to relax in the company of other women, and have fun exploring free expression through painting.
Taking inspiration from the words, life and artistic practice of Etel Adnan (1925-2021), the project championed migration, and the ways in which it can enrich all our lives and benefit the world by connecting diverse society, reducing inequalities and building international unity. Etel Adnan was an artist, specialising in painting, and a poet and writer. She was born in Beirut and lived in different places in her lifetimes, including San Francisco and Paris; she also loved to travel.
At a time of immense strife and turbulence in the world, Etel Adnan’s heartening words give hope and sustenance, and we embraced the powerful theme of ‘togetherness’ throughout the project. We sat together and painted side by side. We also drew each other, played drawing games together and made two folding books together. We shared our ideas and discoveries in paint with each other and celebrated each others’ work.
Joy Martindale (March 2024)
Joy martindale 