SPARROW KEEPERS

Community Outreach Project for the SPARROW KEEPERS sculptures

To inform her new artworks, Kerry is leading a cross-generational letter-writing project across GWP (Great Western Park, Didcot, Oxfordshire) that celebrates the much-loved yet endangered House Sparrow. Each age group has a special role to play:

- The nursery children are the Sparrow Explorers

- The teenagers are the Sparrow Techs

- The older participants are the Sparrow Guardians

The nursery children began with sparrow postal kits, using them to devise imaginative questions about bird life. They also joined a creative session with digital cameras to capture the world from a sparrow’s-eye view, and gathered natural objects for a nature table, later inspiring a Nature Connection sensory session at Oxford Manor care home.

The following day, residents at Poppy Meadows responded with short, handwritten letters addressed to the children, answering their questions in the voice of a sparrow.

This project will continue through the Autumn, with Kerry inviting adults across GWP to become Sparrow Guardians by writing a letter from a sparrow to a nursery child. To request a Sparrow Guardian Pack, please email kerry@kerrylemon.co.uk
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In the Spring, local teenage youth groups from TRAIN and RAW will bring together the letters, drawings, and photographs into a booklet, to be shared with all participants and connected to the final artworks through QR codes.

CLIENT: Vale of White Horse and South Oxfordshire District Council

COLLABORATOR - Photo & film credit: Emma Brown

PROJECT MENTEE: Julie Grose

COMMUNITY GROUPS: Bright Horizons Didcot Day Nursery and Pre-School, Oxford Manor and Poppy Meadows

THANKS TO: Age UK Oxfordshire, Geocaching Oxfordshire, Dr Emma Gardner, National Trust, RAW, SOHA, MyVision, Williams Place, Teresa Atkinson Association University of Worcester, Alzheimer's Society, Lopemede Farm

(Photo and film credit: Emma Brown Photography)