Meera Shakti Osborne

Meera Shakti Osbourne led our first ROCK PAPER SCISSORS holiday club, instigating activities in Drawing Room’s empty gallery over Summer 2021. The group explored storytelling and character building using drawing, dance, movement, word and play. Each child developed their own personal narrative by making handmade books, inspired by the local neighbourhood and their everyday experiences. The sessions brought about conversations around identity and belonging whilst supporting the children’s social interactions and wellbeing. The two weeks ended with an exhibition, with children presenting their drawings and stories to their families!

Meera also led a ROCK PAPER SCISSORS Flatpack project during lockdown with 25 children from Townsend Primary, before the school reopened. Through postal and video exchange, Meera encouraged children to use drawing to translate their emotions into plants, animals and objects. One boy drew boredom as a stack of square shapes. Another represented hope as spring flowers. These playful drawing games gave children a way of processing their experience of the pandemic and allowed them to communicate their feelings to each other, in non-verbal ways. At the end of the project each child received a pack of printed postcards of everyone’s drawings to keep and share. On returning to the school, the children translated their drawings into a collective tapestry.