"Chain of friendship"

The project "chain of friendship" is based on the book "Ystävyys kuin perhosen kutitus" (A friendship tickling as butterflies)
This spring I had the pleasure to go and have workshops in daycares and school.
We builded for each a own friend, using socks, stockings to give it form.
About 60 children got their own creature home.

The filling consited out of different kind of materials giving weight, and decoration/creatures where free to invent to the kids. We worked on the floor again, spreading with lots of fun all the stuff around, getting wonderful personal figures. With some groups we created, according to the book, recipes for friendship, they could be anything, from jelly to hugs to snails...

Basically my goal was to get the children once again in contact with recycling materials and above all the idea to create little social sideways for the children to talk, play between each others and having created their own toy.
An other goal was to bring forward the importance of weight versus calming effect. Each creature was filled with something that gave it a sustainable weight, so the could be put on the stomach/neck/legs to calm down and help to focus more.
It was amazing how children instinctively started to do this.

So the workshop had in total a calming effect by giving them choices to create their own, by the feeling of the materials and using the hands in different ways, and by the end product.

Personaly I got a lot out of it,  and will be probably making some more this year:)

This project was sponsored by Varsinais-Suomen Taidetoimikunta