• Arts in health innovation charity Rosetta Life have been collaborating with carers to create poetry, dance, movement and visual arts
• The result of the two-year project will be a series of images projected onto public buildings with a sound score of music and carers poems
• Carers from Bristol Black Carers , Kingston Carers’ Network and carers referred to Helix Arts, North Tyneside have taken part

5pm, 19 January 2024:     Ancient Market House, Kingston-on-Thames
Linskill Centre, North Shields
Bristol Council, Bristol

The culmination of a two-year project working with carers, who are often excluded from cultural activities because of their responsibilities, Heart of Care is an artwork made up of a series of images with a sound score that will be projected in public spaces. The artwork will shine a light on the invisible role that carers play in families and communities, and challenge the perceptions of care in an inclusive society. The images were inspired by the movement workshops and were developed into curated images, and express the compassion displayed in the role of carer. The artwork will be over 10 metres high and projected over the course of one to two hours, accompanied by original music composed by Matthew Peters blended with poems written by carers and recorded in their own voices.

During the pandemic, Rosetta Life formed a carers’ chorus who performed alongside stroke survivors in the online opera I Look For The Think. Inspired by the group, Rosetta Life extend their activities with carers, and partnered with Helix Arts, Bristol Black Carers and Kingston Carers’ Network to create a new project in new communities, including North Tyneside, Bristol and Kingston. The two-year project acknowledges the dedication, sacrifice and profound impact of caregiving, and gives and offers carers a platform to express their experiences creatively.

Creative Director of Rosetta Life Lucinda Jarrett said, “All our societies rely on families to care for people who cannot manage alone; however, carers often feel invisible and unrecognised. Heart of Care will create public art works to share dynamic images of care that illustrate the resilience, strength, dignity and joy of caring.”

Participant Penni Cotton said, “Heart of Care has been cathartic for carers. The poetry sessions helped us to gain trust in each other, release our pent-up feelings and gain confidence in ourselves as poets. Further artistic input encouraged us to visually represent our words and, finally, feel brave enough to add movement to our experiences. This creativity has released us from responsibility and allowed us to be ourselves.”

Carers found the sessions invoked a mixture of feelings like joy, happiness, sadness, and a recognition that they often felt unappreciated but all told that they felt motivated to share their feelings with each other.

The Heart of Care projections emerged from a project started by the HeArt of Care Alliance, an alliance of international organisations who are working together to raise awareness for the role of carers in our societies. The organisations who make up the alliance are Rosetta Life, End of Life Care Rwanda, Bristol Black Carers, Kingston Carers’ Network, Caregivers India, India and PallChase.

Rosetta Life is an arts in health innovation charity, who have 25 years of evidence based practice working with leading artists. They pioneer meaningful performances that are transformative to participants, audiences and society. Each project is a social problem-solving incubator presenting scalable solutions. Their ongoing project Stroke Odysseys has included performances: Hospital Passion Play, an opera performed by seventy performers including professional singers and a choir of twenty stroke survivors at the Victoria and Albert Museum; I Look For The Think, an online opera released during the pandemic, and touring music and dance show Stroke Odysseys. In 2024 Rosetta Life will be presenting 360 immersive film Room2Dream, made with young people including refugees and those in children’s hospices, and conference event Let Silence Speak in collaboration with English National Ballet and Breathe and will be touring regionally