Introduction by Susie, the Bray community organiser

Hi I am the Community Organiser in Bray for the Time Capsule Project, my name is Susie and my background is in Fine Art Printmaking and creative education. I love to get involved in the community and see the absolute benefit of these projects in it. I have been involved in my local Street Feast, ‘Follow the Star’ festival, and I have been a chairperson of my children’s school. I am also a member of the Bray Autism friendly town committee and I have run community art workshops. I really enjoy facilitating and providing creativity in the community. I got involved in this wonderful project as I was attracted to the idea of connecting the two generations and providing the facility to help make these two much affected cohorts connect during lockdown. I worked with a wonderful group of 4th year teenagers. They welcomed the distraction and communication with each other. We had weekly zoom meetings and checked in at all stages of the project. The zoom meetings always went well over the time as they loved connecting with each other. They had all been in the same class for primary school and some had not been in contact since 6th class so they had fun reconnecting. I arranged a safe social distance meet up on the Bray seafront to paint Kindness stones, the turnout was almost 100%. I encouraged and helped them along with their creative Ideas. There was a fantastic mix of creative responses. I believe the seniors in the project enjoyed it too, any excuse to change up the day as most were cocooning, so this project was a welcome distraction from lockdown. They found the idea of a professional photographer novel and another welcome distraction and they look forward to seeing the outcome.

Participants