In Spring 2024, my friend and creative collaborator Liz Waddell and myself responded to a call-out for practitioners to tender for a project that would fill a local exhibition space with artwork and stories on the theme of jewellery.

The purpose behind the exhibition was to raise awareness of the Cossington necklace, a four thousand year old piece of jewellery found in a Leicestershire gravel pit many years ago and now on display at Charnwood Museum.

Too full of ideas to choose just a couple, we ended up offering a menu of possibilities, with painting, making, writing and storytelling activities that could be adapted to anybody’s needs. A brief online interview followed and to our delight, Culture Leicestershire – the organisation responsible for the project – gave us the gig.

We held our first workshop at the museum in August with Fearon Hall’s wonderful Anand Mangal ladies’ group, and the last – an online digital storytelling workshop for students from the University of Nottingham – this week (Feb 2025).

And we’ve had such a fantastic time! We’ve shared the story of the Cossington necklace with almost 200 people, collected 120 personal memories and stories of jewellery, and prompted more than 50 people to make beads that are now strung across the gallery as a colourful, giant necklace.

We’ve delivered workshops to a broad spread of individuals and groups across the local area and encouraged people to go see the necklace itself, some of them visiting the museum for the first time ever. Altogether, it’s been a fabulous experience, both for us as creatives, inspiring us in our own work, and as facilitators, supporting the creativity of others. We’re both looking forward to the formal exhibition launch on Thursday, and to seeing some of the people that we met in our workshops, once again.

You can read Leicestershire County Council’s press release about the project here.

The My Jewellery, My Story exhibition is on display at Charnwood Museum until 15th June 2025.