PAST AWARD WINNERS: A HEAVY LOAD

A STORY-TELLING PROJECT BY LOTTIE FOX-JONES

“I was a part-time carer growing up,” says Lottie Fox-Jones, former Illustration Animation BA (Hons) student, talking about her childhood, and how Angelman syndrome impacted her family. Her brother Harvey grew up with this serious genetic disorder. Lottie says Harvey, who is now 22 years old, has the mental age of a nine-month-old baby, as well as other symptoms such as epilepsy, hyperactivity and ADHD. “He needs a lot of one-to-one care.”

Being a childcarer put a lot of pressure and responsibility on this young woman, who started taking an interest in carers’ well-being and ways of finding support. “The most overlooked group of carers are the ones aged 5 to 8 years old,” she explains, adding that these numbers were an important part of the reasons behind her project for Kingston University, ‘A Heavy Load.’

Lottie created a 25 kilos “big red man” made of sand and stuffing, moveable but not with ease for the average person. The project, entitled ‘A Heavy Load’, highlighted the load placed on carers from all ages, but especially the younger ones. Being young, they are not the primary caretakers and the pressure put on their shoulders is often almost forgotten.

“It [the project] represents the physical and emotional weight of caring for someone much larger than you, not only in terms of size but in terms of the amount of responsibility that they require,” says the young designer. “Reflecting on a personal experience, I wanted to make something that made that emotional weight easy to digest and understand for other people, carers or children carers.”

Lottie says the process was a gratifying experience and that she enjoyed creating something that made so much sense to her: highlighting the importance of “caring for carers.” She wanted her work to be shared with carers, and children carers, but also with people unfamiliar with what it feels like to be in that position. Meant as an interactive project, the “soft, lovable, huggable but surprisingly heavy” big red man is also a conversation starter. “A conversation that could be too hard to bring up or to have,” adds Lottie.

“It was really magical to see young carers projecting themselves, interacting with it [the big red man] playfully and using it as a way to help them to simply understand that they were understood, and to be able to chat to other people about it or see other people interact with it. It is really what made the project complete.”
She says seeing the project on display was a great experience, and that she saw the red man as a vessel for other people to project their own experiences.

‘A Heavy Load’ made Lottie Fox-Jones a double winner of the Creative Conscience Gold award.

PS. Since we're on the topic of mental mealth, remember to check out our CREATIVE CHANGE MAKERS happening tommorow at 6pm. 

Join us for innovative advice & support from our inpirirng speakers on various areas within subjects of Cretivity + Mental Health. 

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