COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT

Jean visited various communities on her 2007 journey around the coast, including Herne Bay Junior School and Bettershanger Brass Band and worked with both of them last year continuing the themes of the Drawing Breath project  This work was brought together in "Drawing Breath Recycled: Maps and Journeys", a collaborative group exhibition which opened at the Horsebridge Gallery, Whitstable, on 2nd October 08. The exhibition also featured new mixed media work by invited artists Sue Ridge and Rosa Ainley.

Members of Canterbury & District Breathe Easy group also worked with Jean. The group, of which she is a member, is part of the British Lung Foundation UK-wide network of support groups for anyone affected by lung disease and it had already given a great deal of support to the Drawing Breath project. Individual members collaborated in self-directed portraiture work last summer which became part of "Faces in a landscape", a new photo-essay by Jean, reinterpreting the journey through involvement of some of the people who helped make it possible.

BETTESHANGER BRASS BAND AND ANNIE WHITEHEAD:

Through the new Drawing Breath Music Group, Jean set up a collaboration between the Band and Annie Whitehead, professional jazz trombonist and composer and commissioned Annie to compose a new piece of music themed on breathing. The Drawing Breath Music Project is grateful to the PRS Foundation for funding this project, which celebrated music directly produced by breath and also acknowledged the history of miners' struggles with occupational lung disease.                                                                                    
The new composition was premiered by the Betteshanger Band at the launch concert of the Deal Music Festival on 5th July 2008 (see Events page for details) and a video was made by Jean and Megan Fraser to accompany the composition and shown in the exhibition "Drawing Breath Recycled".                                                                       

Artist residency at Herne Bay Junior School

Jean also undertook a health-themed residency based on her 2007 coastal journey with Year Five at Herne Bay Junior School last summer term, building a life-size bicycle sculpture with driftwood collected from the Kent coast (photo on blog). The children later visited the Horsebridge Arts and Community Centre to see their work included in "Drawing Breath Recycled" last October.