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Touchstone is a community project that explores a new way of approaching feelings of grief through creativity and action using a unique process and experience created by artist Gillian Allard for the Platforma Festival, produced by Counterpoints Arts, made possible by funding from Arts Council England & Suffolk County Council. In partnership with St Elizabeth Hospice and Suffolk Community Libraries.
"Touchstones was an exceptional project: ambitious, original and far-reaching. It was clear from the outset that Gillian Allard had planned the project with great depth, working with partners to ensure that she had sufficient support as well as to deliver the project workshops and exhibition"
- Tom Green - Senior Producer - Counterpoints Arts
Film by: Hossam Fazulla
BEFORE: Thirty one participants took part in the project. Some people had lived in Suffolk all their lives while others were from refugee and migrant backgrounds. Prior to the session they sent a photograph of a person close to them that had passed. Gillian edited then bonded each image to three stones to create memory stones - one completed large memory stone that was specially boxed and revealed in the session by the relative, a smaller partially made beach pebble and a tiny completed beach stone as a keepsake.
REVEAL: During carefully designed small group workshops each person revealed their beach stone using water, to reveal the face of their loved one, then later sealed in resin, a poem was added to the reverse requesting their return to the sea if found. Then writer Roua Horanieh worked with the participant to help them express their feelings and loss in words. This enabled each person to later hand-write a tribute onto their larger pebble. At the end of the session, each participant received the tiny pebble as a treasure to keep.
In Stacy's words
RELEASE: The groups met the following week at a coastal location in Suffolk and there spent time on the beach discussing their loss, writing their tributes and preparing to release their beach memory stone to the sea with support from grief counsellors from St Elizabeth Hospice, bereavement service. This was an emotional yet uplifting experience.
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