Letters From the Sea – A Creative Workshop with Vicki Aimers

What might a letter sent out to sea carry with it? A memory, a message, a hope, a story — or something left unsaid?

Letters from the Sea is a four-part creative journalling workshop series developed by artist and PhD researcher Vicki Aimers, in partnership with the National Maritime Museum Cornwall and as part of her practice-based PhD research with Falmouth University. The project is kindly funded by the Dr Jayne Wackett Award from the Royal Institution of Cornwall.

The workshops take inspiration from the story of Margaret Lanyon, a pupil from Mawgan School who created a darning sampler at school in 1879, when she was 15 years old. Her sampler is now held in the collection of the Cornwall Museum & Art Gallery in Truro. Margaret lived with her family in Gweek, working in the maritime industry, and it is said that she piloted boats along the Helford River as a young woman. Through Margaret’s surviving sampler and the fragments of her life that can be traced through archival research, the workshops invite participants to think about women’s lives, work, correspondence, and connections to the sea.

Across four sessions, participants will create their own stitched, distressed and mended fabric and paper letters, exploring the idea of letters in bottles cast out to sea, waiting for a reply on the returning tide. Through writing, stitching, collage, and other forms of making, participants will consider voyages, female agency, care, resilience, connection, loss, and recovery.

The workshops also make space for the gaps and silences within personal histories. Some parts of a life can never be fully recovered, and these absences are an important part of a story too. The sessions are an opportunity to slow down, make, write, and share memories and experiences alongside others, while exploring how correspondence and repair can connect us across time and tide.

No previous creative experience is needed.

A series of four group workshops, limited to 10 participants.

Time: 10.30am – 1pm

Dates: 1, 8, 15, 22 March

Cost: £20

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