It has been a challenging year for many in our community, but we are delighted that A Moment’s Peace has been able to continue our programme of workshops, which has seen the Women’s Creative Company (WCC) continue their regular artistic explorations.
Each 3-month residency of monthly workshops, led by a Guest Artist, has seen this amazing group of women remain connected, offering support and solidarity to each other, whilst exploring new creative practice.
I enjoyed the workshops and it’s fantastic to stay in touch through zoom with other members. Especially when we are restricted to do much because of Covid. I felt for a while so lost, lonely and isolated not being at my groups.” Margaret
At A Distance Together
Transitioning to remote/digital engagement was vital in supporting group members to meet safely in the current pandemic restrictions. Our first round of workshops was held online via Zoom and led by talented short filmmaker and director Raisah Ahmed.
Raisah introduced us to the world of short film, exploring the stories of our everyday lives, oral traditions, myths and legends and the science and the shape of storytelling. We created characters and brought them to life through character questionnaires that brought some thought-provoking and laughter-filled moments to the 'zoom room.'
"How does your character react when they break a mug?" was a group favourite that evening. Raisah then led the group to create loglines and one-page treatments for a short film, leaving us with a deeper understanding of the world of short film and the process of getting started on our own ideas.
At A Shorter Distance Together
As restrictions started to lift, the next round of residencies saw us transition our monthly meetings to both in-person and online, with group members having the option to connect at home or come along to our regular venue at the Renfield Centre.
Our current Guest Artist is Greer Pester, a Glaswegian artist who does a lot of drawing with scissors and loves collage and paper art.
With the group, Greer is exploring what it means to be someone who identifies as a woman today and developing a coat of arms design representative of the WCC.
The first session was focused on creative writing exercises to come up with a motto for the WCC coats of arms. The group voted on one and the motto will be authentic and free.
The second workshop saw the group designing the fields (the background pattern) of the coat of arms with a Japanese paper art technique called Notan then making paper cut artworks exploring the symbolism of WCC. Participants were asked questions such as “if a woman were a landscape what would she be?” and “if a woman was a utensil what would she be and why?” and then translated the associated images into artworks.
With one more workshop to go, we are excited to see the final coat of arms!
It has been a joy to continue workshops with the Women’s Creative Company and continue to offer safe space to come together, share experiences, ideas and creative energy.
We are always open to new members, so if you would like to come along and meet the group, join us for a taster workshop or be added to our mailing list, contact Coordinator Mina: coordinator@amomentspeace.co.uk / 07931 264114
