The Benefits of Creativity in Lockdown

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"Creativity keeps us connected - it is something to look forward to"

Due to the pandemic we had to take this year’s creative health festival online. People Like Us was Coventry’s first week long virtual festival that brought local, national and international creatives together to share their passions and skills. At a time when we were all confined to our homes bringing creativity to people never felt as important.
Hand made leaves

People Like Us was developed by myself with support and funding from City of Culture, Coventry City Council, Warwickshire County Council, The Great Places Project and Starfish Collaborative.

From Monday, July 6th – Sunday, July 13th 2020. 42 creatives came together to host a variety of workshops, Facebook live sessions, pre-recorded interviews, film screenings, audiovisual sessions and a quiz night!

People Like Us Timetable Final

Read All About It

Click on the link below to read all about the creatives involved, what we got up too, how it made people feel, the impacts of creativity on health and wellbeing, key learnings from taking the festival online to working with partners in the virtual world. 

For me, one of the highlights of the festival is that we went global – BOOM! Coventry’s first-ever online creative health festival reached as far as Australia, the Philippines and Kuala Lumpa to name just a few. Check out the report to see exactly where our festival-goers were tuning in from….

Click here to read all about it – People Like Us Report

 

High Definition community-powered action in effect! 

In Conversation With Jay podcast

From furloughed to learning new skills

Feel Good HQ opened its doors to a new resident creative. My Feel Good partner in crime Jay turned to music to help him through lockdown. Being furloughed gave him the time to explore and learn new ways of creatively connecting with his passions. 

During the People Like Us Festival week, he produced 5 “in conversations with Jay” zoom interviews. Local artist Paul Chokran was commissioned to create the artwork you can see above. 

Jay has since created a Podcast series on both Anchor.fm and Apple Podcasts 

A platform that will continue to champion local, national and international artists to find out their thoughts on the creative industry, whilst celebrating the power of arts and creativity on our mind, bodies and souls. High Definition community-powered action in effect! 

 

WHATS NEXT?

Although some of us are longing to meet up in person, for some, this proves difficult. Even before lockdown, those with disabilities or health conditions found it harder to access face to face meetups. So the virtual opportunities that were created during lockdown were a blessing.

The People Like Us Festival helped people to connect, learn new skills and get creative together. Over the coming months, I will be looking at ways we can bring more virtual sessions to life over the coming months. The ethos of the festival was to collaborate with local artists to add value to our local creative economy. So if you know of any possible partners that would like to help bring more sessions to life get in touch…

Drop me an email if you have any ideas or sign up to the newsletter to keep up to date with new opportunities…

Thanks for reading – don’t forget to check out the report and podcasts – stay creative! Melissa x