The timecapsule project ellie shipman
An exploration of the past, present and future with members of Stones End Day Centre and Year 7s at Notre Dame Secondary School.
sharing histories
The 13th January 2017 was the first day of The Timecapsule Project at Stones End Day Centre, kindly supported by Pool Re and facilitated by artist Ellie Shipman. Everyone was invited to bring in an object or photograph which had a story behind it to share. From Vera’s tale of her boyfriend’s dog going missing during an air raid, to being found again at Battersea Dog’s Home by her boyfriend during his leave from the army; to Bill explaining his background in rice milling and how he met his wife, as well as giving his advice to women: ‘Be the governor!’. Beatrice told us about her precious address book which she bought when she moved to London from Nigeria in 1974, and still uses to this day. Peter from Pool Re brought in two bone animals which he remembers playing with as a child in South Africa, and Amelia brought in a mask from Venice.
Age UK Stones End Day Centre member Iris with Peter from Pool Re
Age UK Stones End Day Centre member Vera’s photo
Age UK Stones End Day Centre member Beatrice
Age UK Stones End Day Centre member Iris’s work
Age UK Stones End Day Centre member Joan
Age UK Stones End Day Centre member Pauline
Age UK Stones End Day Centre member Millicent
Age UK Stones End Day Centre member Eileen
mobile memories On 24th January 2017 we explored shapes inspired by the conversations and stories we had together. Emily and Jonathan from Pool Re joined the session and had some fantastic chats and made some lovely creations with members of Stones End Day Centre. Highlights included Joan’s mobile which featured all her favourite things: ‘My bird, two cats, two dogs… and a daughter!’; Clinton’s watchmaking days featured on his mobile as a watch strap and Big Ben; Leon’s beautiful abstract shapes; and Christine’s gorgeous mobile which she insisted on having her photo taken with she was so proud of it! All the mobiles were hung up in the windows of the main hall at Stones End Day Centre for everyone to see! The gorgeous shapes from the mobiles were used to inform the design of the mural. Age UK Stones End Day Centre member Estha
Age UK Stones End Day Centre Pauline with Jonathan from Pool Re
Age UK Stones End Day Centre member Edna
Age UK Stones End Day Centre member Christine
Age UK Stones End Day Centre member Clinton with Emily from Pool Re
future visions
Year 7 students from Notre Dame Secondary School joined the session at Stones End Day Centre on 10th February 2017 for the first time. It was a fantastic session and the students did a brilliant job of audio recording each others’ visions of the future and discussions of their significant objects to put in the timecapsule.
Notre Dame School student Dorca
We used watercolour, pen and pencil to create visions of the future and add our messages about what life is like now. These drawings will inform the mural design too! Notre Dame School student Kanni
Notre Dame School student Tashana
Notre Dame School student
Notre Dame School student
Notre Dame School student
hear our messages We spent the session recording our audio messages to the future to go in the timecapsule. Lisa and Sarah from Pool Re prepared the dictaphones and developed the questions with Ellie and then everyone got involved in asking them to each other. The questions were:
The Timecapsule, dictaphone and interview questions
What is your name and where do you live? How old are you and when you do think the Timecapsule should be opened? Describe an object which has been significant in your life. How do you think the people of the future will understand your object? We had a great time interviewing everyone! Sarah, Lisa, Jack and Ellie interviewed members of Stones End Day Centre, and Year 7 students from Notre Dame Secondary School interviewed each other about their objects and visions of the future too. Scan the codes to hear!
Age UK staff Jack interviewing centre member Pat
scan this code with your phone to listen to our messages: Pool Re staff member Sarah and students from Notre Dame
Students from Notre Dame School
food in our time
The theme on 24th February 2017 was FOOD! Food is such a signifier of our time, and has changed so much even in living memory, not to mention all the types of food eaten by people of different cultures across the UK and all around the world – even just in 2017! Pool Re staff Camilla and Amelia supported the session. Using watercolour, drawing pens and pencils we explored and shared our favourite food, from fruit platters to powdered yam, boiled meat pie, Haribo (a questionable meal!) and roast dinners. We recorded our conversations about what food would be like in 100 years time, and people shared their hopes for more self-grown food and speculated about whether we might have a ‘food pill’ instead of the food we know now.
Notre Dame students with Camilla and Amelia from Pool Re
Age UK Stones End Day Centre member Iris
Iris drew a blue fishfinger (because she had already used brown in the painting) and Camilla from Pool Re painted some fantastic baked beans in her cooked breakfast (although some of the girls from Notre Dame thought they were waffles…). Even teachers Teresa and Vanessa got involved! In conclusion: we all love food. Age UK Stones End Day Centre member Iris
scan this code with your phone to listen to our food chats:
Notre Dame School student
Notre Dame School student Precious
Notre Dame School student Ore
Age UK Stones End Day Centre member
Age UK Stones End Day Centre volunteer Jessica
Timecapsule Project artist Ellie
Pool Re staff member Amelia
Pool Re staff member Camilla
Notre Dame School teacher Vanessa
Notre Dame School student Ifeoma
music of our lives
The session on 10th March 2017 was all about MUSIC! We spent the day sharing songs from our lives, singing to each other and talking about the meaning of our favourite lyrics. Lisa from Pool Re and Ellie chatted to the Stones End members, loading up their songs on YouTube and playing them through our phones to much excitement. From Amazing Grace to Sailing Over Moonlight Bay and the Anniversary Waltz we shared some lovely songs from our lives, writing our favourite lyrics onto postcards and decorating them with ink.
Stones End member Edna’s Amazing Grace postcard
Julian and Steve from Pool Re came along and met Bill, Ann and other Stones End members as well as a new group of Year 7s from Notre Dame Secondary School. The students were incredibly enthusiastic and created some beautiful postcards of their own favourite songs and lyrics, from Ed Sheeran to Little Mix, before confidently interviewing the members about their musical tastes.
Year 7s from Notre Dame School with their lyric postcards
meaningful lyrics
Can you tell which lyrics are from which generation? What is your favourite song?
Year 7s from Notre Dame interview Steve from Pool Re
Year 7s from Notre Dame interview Pat at Stones End
Year 7s from Notre Dame interview Margarete at Stones End
scan this code with your phone to listen to our music sharing: Year 7s from Notre Dame interview Vera at Stones End
capsule objects
On 24th March 2017 Year 7s from Notre Dame School explored objects for the timecapsule and wrote messages to the future. From a postcard of the sites of London to a school badge and even an already vintage Nokia flip-phone, the students brought in a great selection of objects to show the future the strange and wonderful ways of life in our times. Pool Re staff Lisa and Helen added some souvenirs to the capsule too!
& future
postcards
Notre Dame School student Kuukuwa
Notre Dame School student Tashana
Notre Dame School student Kanni Hannah
Stones End Day Centre member Bill
future of fashion
The 24th April was the final session of The Timecapsule Project. We explored something inherent in human culture for millenia – fashion. We all wear clothes! Lisa from Pool Re supported the session as we coloured and decorated clothes from templates of the 1940s, 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s and designed our own futuristic clothing. The students from Notre Dame School were brilliant at interviewing the Stones End Day Centre members about their favourite outfits and best decades of fashion history, and what they thought the future of fashion would be like. What is your favourite outfit? And what do you think people will wear in the future?
Stones End Day Centre visitors Clyde and Margaret
Stones End Day Centre member Clinton
Stones End Day Centre member Clinton with Year 7s
Stones End Day Centre member Estha
scan this code with your phone to listen to our FASHION STORIES: Stones End members Pauline and Eileen
Fashion questions, Year 7’s design and the timecapsule
Stones End member Estha
Stones End member Edna
Stones End member Pauline
Stones End member Pauline
Stones End member Edna
Stones End member Estha
Stones End member Clinton
Stones End member Christine
Notre Dame Year 7 Arancxa
Notre Dame Year 7 student
Notre Dame Year 7 student
Notre Dame Year 7 student
mural design
A quilt is traditionally produced communally and is a much loved item which is passed down through the generations. Quilts often feature special blocks with iconography and patterns important to it’s creators.
1. Adeline Harris Sears 1865 quilt (Image from Met Museum)
This 1856 quilt is by 17 year old Adeline Harris Sears (1) who sent famous people of her time pieces of silk to sign and send back. Her final quilt features 8 US presidents, Charles Dickens and lots of other authors, artists and scientists! Our mural is inspired by a ‘tumbling block’ quilt pattern, providing a facet of each ‘cube’ as the host for a unique pattern created from drawings by the project participants of significant things in their lives and their visions of the future. The colours are taken from Stones End member Pauline’s plant drawing (2).
2. Colours for the mural informed by Pauline’s plant drawing
The wall itself has been prepared by Pool Re, with Warren coming down to knock down the old brick barbeque (4) and Lisa arranging a power washing to get it ready for the mural installation! The final design is the front cover, see detail overleaf (6). 3. Concept drawing for the mural installation
4. Barbeque being dismantled by Warren from Pool Re
5. Original wall and brick barbeque
the Time 2017 capsule 2067 The timecapsule is buried in the Stones End Day Centre garden and should be opened in 50 years, in the year 2067. In the timecapsule is: - A copy of this paper including photos from Stones End Day Centre participants which were too precious to be buried! - Items from Notre Dame School students including a pencil case, keyring, school pin badge, business card, mobile phone and postcard of London. - Items from Pool Re including a Pool Re pen, Pool Re travel wallet and season train ticket from Pool Re staff. - A USB stick with a copy of the audio podcast we created for the project featuring highlights of the conversations we have had between older and younger people of 2017.
Stones End member Iris and artist Ellie with the timecapsule!
Will the people of 2067 recognise these traces of our lives? What will their lives be like?
our MURAL
Throughout this project we have seen beautiful drawings and highly imaginative creations come from all participants. A selection of these were digitally traced and are featured on the mural design.
Can you find all the patterns in the mural listed below?
1. Iris’s house 2. Kanni’s tree 3. Amelia’s cake 4. Leon’s plant 5. Leon’s bird
6. Rachel’s iPhone 7 7. Year 7 student’s notebook 8. Ore’s fried eggs 9. Iris’s fishfinger 10. Year 7 student’s clouds
11. Vera’s dog 12. Stones End garden’s phonebox 13. Bill’s meat pudding 14. Joan’s thimble 15. Jessica’s papaya and mango
16. Pat’s cigarettes 17. Precious’s chicken drummers 18. Bill’s rice 19. Rachel’s paintbrush and Bic pen 20. Beatrice’s 1974 diary
colour & draw
how will people communicate in 2067? can you design a new device?
draw what you think people will eat in 50 years time...
could you make a friend for this robot?
can you add a futuristic building next to this house?
thank you! Thank you to the members and staff of Stones End Day Centre including: Members Ann Beatrice Bill Cynthia A Dorothy Edna Eileen Elsie Iris M Iris H Kathleen R Lafitat Maisie Margaret A May Millicent Monaf Myrness Patricia Pauline Patricia C Rose Vera Gerald Anthony Christine H Clinton
Estha Joan Kathleen B Leon Mercy Sunday Staff Yusuf Tahir Claret Rodriguez Errol Smith Yazmira Bolivar Cecilia Albariccim Tennis Rose Jack Leahy Brenda Wade Volunteers Precious Adrianne Sue Juliette Kwame Jessica Ionna Anne
Find out more about Stones End DAY CENTRE and AGE uk:
ageuk.org.uk
Thank you to the students and teachers at Notre Dame School including: Notre Dame students: Dorcas Aiyebo Oreoluwatomiwa Akinosi Lawal Gloria Alabi Rachel Anin Acquah Aaliyah Brown Kanni Dumbaya Tashana Elliott Kuukuwa Essel Precious Gerry Stefania Hernandez Morales Ifeoma Ibekwe Jalila Kamara Oreoluwa Lanlehin Arancxa Marin Beltran Zainab Odusote Esher Olumuyiwa Emerel Saffa Faith Samuriwo Laura Taveras Abreu Whitney Tawaih Nicole Villada Precious Wilson-Lo
Notre Dame staff: Marian Shasanya Vanessa Chodel Teresa Crowley
Find out more about Notre dame RC secondary school:
notredame.southwark.sch.uk
See more and listen to our podcast here:
scan this code with your phone to see our blog:
Thank you to Pool Re who funded and supported this project including:
ellie shipman
thetimecapsuleproject.wordpress.com
Ellie is a participatory artist who facilitates projects with communities exploring everything from being human, to urban change and sustainability.
Pool Re staff: Lisa Eley Emily Rees Peter Aves Amelia Edwards Sarah Moore Steve Coates Helen Moore Julian Enoizi Camila Scimgeour Jonathan Cloke
Find out more about Pool Reinsurance at:
poolre.co.uk
Find out more about Ellie or get in touch at: somethinggoodsomethinguseful.com @somethinggoodsu eleanorshipman@gmail.com
thetimecapsuleproject.wordpress.com