Cwtsh: Box of Games

With our previous experience working in arts and health, we decided to participate in the Open Call as a challenge to the type of projects we usually deliver. We saw Cwtsh Creadigol as a way in which we could use our own experience of art as a source of personal and collective wellbeing first and foremost. Cooked Illustration’s team deeply understands that positively directed art-making can have a massively positive effect on one’s feelings of wellbeing. Our challenge was to take our personal experiences and to present them in a way that didn’t feel like yet another drawing exercise. We have seen how a “workshop” style framing can really make people disconnect. To solve this we decided to bring in the principle of the magic circle and, in essence, build a collection of games. Cwtsh: Box of Games, or Bocs o Gemau in Welsh - we decided that the project had to be available in both English and Welsh - is a collection of seven paper-based drawing games pilfered from our own experiences, as well as one game we came up with all on our own. These were designed with the participant in mind: someone who may only have a couple of minutes to play, and may not have access to much more than pen and paper.Games can help reframe ideas in a way that becomes much more accessible. The participant is not sitting down for a fifteen-minute wellbeing exercise - they are playing a game with friends. Fun is first and foremost, because from this fun other concerns may be left outside of the Magic Circle. And once inside, who knows, maybe the participant will suddenly realise that two hours have passed and they were just really enjoying drawing things. Our collection of seven games is available on the Cwltural Cwtsh website in both English and Welsh.