One year on.
Taking a look at what Griffics has served up over the last year
I’ve just reached the one year mark for working on Griffics full-time – toot-toot! So I’ve taken a little time to look back at what’s worked, what could work better and what’s been a complete surprise.
The latter first – I kinda thought I was doing Griffics to give me the chance to see what I could do on my own, but it completely hasn’t worked out like that. Everything I’ve done in the last year has been some form of collaboration and I’ve absolutely loved it! A big thank you to everyone I’ve worked with this year, including Karl Toomey, Mika Sembongi, Tori Flower, Esther Neslen, Amy Scaife, Sara Shimasue, Kaori Yatsumoto, Zac Schwarz, Nichola Daunton, Irene Pulga, Penny Wilson, Eloise Wu, Mark Clack, Gabriel Edwards, Olga Astaniotis, Alistair Veryard, Fiona Keogh and her class at Harbinger Primary School, Sarita Mamseri, Sonia Blackett, Suzi Warren, Danny Fisher, Nirish Shakya, Morag McGuire and Laura Kelly. Special thanks to my Griffiths’s – Sari, Sola and Dinky for all their ideas and support. Well, Dinks (our dog) isn’t that strong on the ideas but it’s been amazing having her around.
Our lovely, daft dog
Something that has worked really well has been working on different kinds of projects, running them as experiments. The aim has been to try and pin down the model for the business. Aaaaaaand I think it’s becoming clear that the heart of what I have to offer is workshops. Probably not a surprise…? But it’s taken a while for me to realise that. They are a very direct way for me to do what I want – make some change happen by using play – and help everyone involved understand that they can contribute creatively. I love working with people in real life and seeing things happen in real-time.
Workshops
Pretty early on I started to offer workshops to organisations on how to access play and playfulness in the workplace as individuals and across teams. I ran one of these for Glimpse and it was great fun and flattering too as their work is already very playful. It builds on a workshop I had previously run for Riot Communications and uses very simple, accessible exercises to give everyone taking part a sense of creative confidence (if that’s lacking) and permission to play. Workshops of this kind are useful in promoting creativity and for bringing teams together around something fun, positive and useful. Later in the year, I got to make this case at a talk at Agency Hackers. And in broader terms in a talk and panel discussion as part of World Creativity Day.
One of the kids taking part in a Ministry of the Future workshop, using a ‘What if…’ card to frame his vision
In the Summer, as part of the E17 Art Trail, I opened the doors of The MInistry Of The Future. A chance to work with local kids on their visions for the future, working with words, pictures and cardboard. We filled the back room at St J’s Café with their visions, ranging from objects that they would like to have – a robotic arm that dispensed ice-cream – to places they would like to live – a forest-based housing complex. Each person taking part received a certificate that made them part of the Ministry.
One of our Ministers
Later in the Summer, I started running our Local Colours flag-making workshop with Mika Sembongi at Walthamstow FC’s ground. Here we helped kids celebrate the local area visually. All being well, these flags will go up in the stands later this year.
One of the designs, with a tracing paper overlay with notes
One of the finished flag designs
We were then brought in by Wood Street Walls and the Canal & River Trust to develop our flag-making workshop into a five-week project at Harbinger Primary School in Docklands, using it to explore the area’s black history. It was a real joy to get to know the kids quite well by the end and see their designs progress. The project started with a visit to Museum of London, Docklands and came full circle when we were able to show the 12 finished flags, for one weekend only, in the Museum.
One group working on their nearly finished flag
One of the finished flags
Fiona, the teacher we worked with, and one of the pupils with the flag she worked on
Another thing I’ve really enjoyed being able to do this year has been tying the projects and workshops to some sort of positive social or environmental benefit. It may all be small potatoes but they are meaningful potatoes. The Creative Climate Action Workshops were an example of this.
And in development is a new workshop called Objects of desire, exploring materials and materialism. We give each participant a box containing a mass-produced consumer product and ask them to remake it out of a limited set of materials including fabric, thread, buttons and cardboard. They have to be resourceful and inventive to achieve the effects they want. We have tested this with kids aged 9-12 and it worked a treat. We’re also shaping a version of it for college-aged participants.
Participants unboxing their object of desire
As facilitators we help where needed but give space for participants to problem solve.
The kids in our test session produced wonderful things.
Projects
The biggest project that got off the ground this year was The Bridge – a table that helps to connect people. It sits on the walls between neighbours, or between you and the street. It’s a platform for people’s creativity and shared sense of community, a place for a cuppa, a chat, a game of chess, somewhere to give stuff away.
We ran the pilot on our street and it was kind of wonderful. It involved a lot of door-knocking and a little badgering, all of which meant that I got to know our street so much better than before. It also sparked coffee mornings and a pizza night where we closed the road to traffic for the first time – it was magical to see the kids playing safely in this street late into the evening.
We’re now have funding to expand the project to four more streets in the area.
Sue, making sure it’s all as it should be
Playing Hive with my son
People also gave away cakes, cards, books and toys. They also ran polls and set creative challenges.
Other projects this year included two windows for St J’s in Walthamtow, One marking Valentines Day and one celebrating other local businesses and their suppliers. They’re great to work for and are very supportive of the local creative community.
Something I’ve continued to do as an informal project is to take chalk on walks with me, looking for creative opportunities. I love that it’s easy, quick and cheap but also potentially powerful, especially in how it can be used to question or challenge public space. I also love how it suggests that the world is not fixed, it can be changed by simply adding a line.
Supplies
Using chalk to create different spaces. Here’s a magic circle I made with the my son.
Using chalk to make people visible.
A project that started right at the end of this first year has been the Monday Mending Club. It’s a very simple idea, we meet up and mend stuff and chat. But there’s also a slyly subversive side to it… as has been noted, in today’s consumerist society, to repair it to rebel. I love about the gentleness of this rebellion. A key inspiration for this is Suzi Warren and her Stitch It, Don’t Ditch It campaign.
We meet at The Bell, E17 every first Monday of the month. And we’re looking to get a family session going too. Follow us on Instagram for updates.
The first Monday Mending Club
Products
I was thrilled to see the Play here sign being embraced by a lot of pro-play people. It’s a very simple product idea – the opposite of a NO BALL GAMES sign – but it’s also part of a larger project about giving children permission to play and questioning the dominance of cars in public space. This podcast episode is brilliant if you want to dig into this further – in it, they answer the question ‘What if we redesigned cities based on children’s needs?’.
Other products I experimented with this year were the Playfulness box – a pack containing 7 simple, creative exercises or prompts to promote play every day. Bee the change – a seed bomb sandwiched between two plant tags – lob it, watch the flowers grow and help the bees. Trash Talking – a set of postcards featuring drawings I made that incorporate bits of rubbish I found on lockdown walks. And The Phone Book – a notebook the size of a mobile phone, made to take its place on walks. And perhaps silliest – DeskTidy™. I’ve also continued to make cards and prints which I sell online but are also stocked locally at the brilliant St J’s and Forest Wines.
Most products and artworks have not flown off the shelf, but that’s helped show where the focus should be – the workshops, followed and supported by projects.
So it’s been a good first year going at this full-time and I’m excited about the year to come. If you’d like to know anything more about the work here or have feedback and suggestions, please get in touch.