A Thousand Paper Cranes - WEEK 1

Today it is the first day of a new block of 10 sessions at the Eating Disorders Unit in Seacroft Hospital.

In case you are wondering, the title of the project comes from an ancient Japanese legend. ‘A Thousand Paper Cranes’ translates to a special Japanese word ‘senbazuru’. The legend goes, if you can carefully fold ‘senbazaru’ - 1000 origami paper cranes you will be granted one wish. Today in Japan, people prepare ‘senbazuru’ as good luck wishes and presents at weddings and births. Often, they are given to loved ones in the hospital, to wish them a speedy recovery.

Myself, and Rozi have been planning lots of playful and large scale activities for the women on the ward, informed by Rozi’s previous projects over the past 2 years. In this project we hope to offer a creative sanctuary, supporting the women to have time to escape and transform the space through playful and imaginative open-ended ways.

Rozi and I reshuffle the dining tables and chairs for the workshop, keen to create a welcoming environment –which is calming and relaxing. Three young women and an OT join us today. They are looking forward to learning new creative skills, escaping their negative thoughts, and trying something different over the series of sessions.

We begin by sitting around a table covered in a huge piece of white fabric, which we collectively start working onto - exploring the technique of wax resist using oil pastel and wax. Rozi has brought an amazing CD with film soundtracks, which triggers lots of discussion!

With ease, the women pick up the coloured oil pastels and white candle wax and make their own marks. The colours are so expressive and vibrant and I enjoy observing the vast array of individual mark making approaches from everybody.

Either pressing onto fabric with careful consideration, or quickly scrunching, folding, thumbing through the folds of the material with the pastel. I find myself trying out others’ approaches and discovering something new and exciting. With jars of bright brusho dye, splatting brushes, sprinkling salt and brusho powder, we discover how the oil, wax and dye merge, blend, resist or interact.

One participant commented how nice it was to spend time with her OT in a creative way. We all admire the rainbow of blends and the unique differences and similarities in our approaches.  “These could be our new curtains in the dining room?!” This process gives us lots of ideas for things we would like to try in the future sessions. The group is certainly not short on ideas! I look forward to seeing how we can develop these ideas together over the next few weeks. 

Bryony