Daniel Gray, Decision, 2020

About the group

The Young People Making Places group participated in a series of online workshops as part of the Encrypted Sounds of Wellbeing project, facilitated by Charnwood Arts and led and delivered by artist Leila Houston.

The group came up with their own responses to Maslow's Theory of Needs with Leila supporting them to develop their ideas. Their responses include drawings, an animation, a science fiction short story and depictions of inventions designed to help society live alongside coronavirus.

Young People Making Places is a project that encompasses: groups, workshops, exhibitions and publishing. It started life in 2013 as an art and media club for young people in Charnwood. As the project has developed it has provided opportunities and a creative space for neurodiverse people. The group have had their work shown locally, in east midlands cities, universities, national publications and even the USA.
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David johnson

​Unfinished Self Portrait, 2015
Self Portrait Without Hair, 2018
Unhealthy Self Image, 2020
​Self Portrait After a Violent Nightmare, 2017

These artworks are part of an ongoing attempt to address the struggle between my self-perception against objective reality.
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Daniel Gray

Decision, 2020

I was inspired by Greek statues and vaporwave. Pink and cyan have a certain appeal to them – probably my favourite colour combination. The text is alluding to the feeling of wanting to forget the past but not being able to.

Planethead, 2020
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In February 2019, NASA announced that the Mars rover Opportunity had "died". Of course, a rover isn't something that people naturally feel empathy for, but it seemed to strike a chord with me.

After 15 years of service, the last message the rover sent was "my battery is low and it's getting dark". I liked the idea of personifying the rover which lead to the idea of personifying the planet, as if they were old friends and one of them was dying.

Georgia ward

HOME, 2020

HOME is a piece inspired by the places I've lived with my family and my feelings regarding them. As an artist I've tried various media to find something that I can enjoy, creating for periods of time and found it in small written works and origami. The former being best accessible due to its portability but the latter being more relaxing from its repetitive nature.

Ash Eddy

Loss of Ambition, 2020
​My animation represents the eventual breakdown of mental stability as time passes by. The longer the animation plays, the more goes wrong. The bamboo represents Maslow's hierarchy of needs; each stage has a need to be met to progress forward. The water represents my mentality during lockdown this year. The water begins to drain away because the bamboo is incorrectly placed, therefore I struggle to reach the next step. The goal in the jug toward the end is never met as the basics are not fulfilled.
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​Mike Millward

Medi, 2020

​This is an exaggeration of the protocols and devices we may have to use. Could these products help us through our health crisis or is this the way ad companies could market to a worried public? 
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​Kirstey Eggleston

Untitled, 2020

Kirstey produces ephemeral paper-works that are inspired by Japanese art. Her practice is meditative as she produces many small artworks over long periods of time.

artist anonymous

The Last Sufferer, 2020

My time in quarantine was a strange one. On the one hand I got more time to focus on things like this, my writing. On the other, I had to meet folk like this. Problem is I now have no time to write and yet everyday I meet these folk.

Leila Houston's reflections

"Working with this group online was a strange experience as we had just entered the full lockdown. All of a sudden we couldn’t spend time with other people like we were used to doing but at the same time we were peeking into each other’s homes on Zoom and revealing our own homes too. The group were very enthusiastic and had some incredible ideas and thoughts to share on what they were thinking about Maslow‘s theory of needs. I am also neurodiverse so it was really interesting to have conversations around safety, belonging and intimacy in relation to how we view the world and about how some of the needs Maslow listed were based on an assumption of neurotypicality, and how these didn’t feel relevant to us".