The Connections Project: The Many Uses of a Blanket

What do you use a blanket for?

To keep warm in the dark of winter or to picnic on in the summer sunshine? Do you wear it as a superhero cape, or hide underneath it from the world? Does it stay in your home, or can you lay it down on the grass for a picnic?

It's been a tough time; one where we've needed to stay home, tucked under our own blankets when it snowed, finding comfort and connection where we can. But the days are getting longer and the potential for laying out our blankets on a sunny patch of grass or around a picnic table next to each other feels like it is growing in likelihood as the days lengthen.

Artists Claire Weetman and Rebecca Ainsworth have been working with members of Buzzhub (St Helens CDP) and other people shielding in St Helens. They've been listening to participants' stories of the dark and the light that has been part of this last winter and sharing activity packs.

Claire and Rebecca have designed a series of printed blankets from the images drawn by those who have taken part. Each collaborator will be given their blanket to keep. The hope is that a picnic can take place around each blanket - a symbolic act of people coming back together in the light of the summer.