Chelmsford Creatives are a group of 15-24 year olds who work alongside Chelmsford Museum. Over lockdown, they’ve created BOREDOM-19: a zine that features creative reflections on social media, mental health, privilege, and how young people across Essex have experienced the COVID-19 pandemic.
To celebrate the launch of the zine, Chelmsford Creatives have organised an Essex-wide Free Art Friday on 30 October 2020.
If you are an artist or creative, all you need to do to get involved is place an original creation (painting, poetry, zine, drawing, print, photography, lyrics etc) somewhere in your local area for a member of the public to find, enjoy and take home. Don’t forget to share images on social media of any art you leave or find using #FreeArtFriday
ABOUT
During lockdown, BOREDOM-19 has been an important outlet for our creativity. In workshops, we’ve spoken candidly with each other about the effect COVID-19 has had on our lives, families, mental health, jobs and education. Through workshops with Dr Tina Kendall (ARU Boredom Researcher), we reflected on the complexity of boredom in lockdown: creativity, making the most of our free-time, opportunities for self-reflection, pressure of self-improvement, and the reality that maybe boredom is a privilege key-workers might not have had.
Chelmsford Creatives
The group worked with Lu Williams (Essex zine artist and activist) to create unique pieces of artwork, that reflected their personal experiences. Then followed a public call-out for creative pieces of work by other young Essex residents, which was flooded with high-quality submissions from across the county. To bring the zine to life, contributors were asked to create digital content which readers can scan QR codes to access.
You can read an online version of BOREDOM-19 at: www.boredomproject.org.
It’s been really exciting to see the project manifest itself from discussions over Zoom to a curated 64-page zine, where other young people in Essex were invited to share their experiences. The hope is for young people in Essex to feel heard.
The Boredom Project is a partnership between Chelmsford Museum, Anglia Ruskin University and the British Science Association.
