‘Send a Smile’ Global Postcard Project
This first global arts and homelessness project which began in Coventry during COVID in 2020 in partnership with Underground Lights
In 2020 while working in Coventry with City of Culture, Hayley and Beth from Underground Lights came up with an idea to reach people in Coventry who were deeply isolated as a result of COVID.
Their idea was to send blank postcards and pens by post to people who were then invited to decorate them with words or pictures which would make someone smile. These postcards were exchanged around Coventry.
AHI offered to make this project global and we all agreed to invite one project on each continent to get involved. The result is a project involving around 300 postcards from P:ear Mentor (Portland, USA), Pehchan (Mumbai, India), Uma Só Voz (Rio, Brazil), Johannesburg Awakening Minds (South Africa), Milkcrate (Sydney, Australia) and Cocoroom (Osaka, Japan). Watch this beautiful film about the project.
The postcards were displayed for the at the Home Festival of Arts and Homelessness, Coventry City of Culture, 8-16th October 2021 and then went on a national tour of England in 2024 to Old Diorama Arts Centre, London; Theatre Royal Plymouth; Belgrade Theatre, Coventry; Rochester Library and Manchester Museum.
The exhibition was free and interactive (see the structure our Co-Director has built to display the postcards, right – and his blog here about how he made it). When the public visits, they were invited to create more postcards for the exhibition (or to ‘send a smile’ to other people they know) and to think about what action they can take to support people who are homeless.
Meanwhile, we worked with schools and homeless centres around the country to create more postcards and raise awareness about homelessness and the role arts has in the support of people facing homelessness.
