Brief
To design a cookbook for kidney patients as well as an audience-facing activity at Tate Modern that would engage the patients in informing the book's design.
Response
Although kidney disease in more common in black people and people of South Asian origins, the dietary guidelines that are given to kidney patients by the NHS do not feature food from these parts of the world. Vital Arts has therefore teamed up with Barts Health NHS Trust to curate a selection of renal recipes written by the patients themselves.
Helping hands is a celebration of this coming together of a wide range of ethnicities, ages and backgrounds, to help each other enjoy a better quality of life while on the renal diet. By photographing the patients' hands, not only do we highlight the wide range of ethnicities behind the recipes, but we also symbolise the act of reaching out and giving a helping hand to others. For our workshop, Plated pointers, kidney patients were invited to have their hands photographed in our photo booth, and then share a renal tip by writing over the photograph.
The workshop was a success, and we won the pitch for the cookbook design.