A hand made tea service of food memories

By Nicola Benge

Some of the participants with the tea service

Photo from WRVS Heritage Plus Archive

The tea service

Photo from WRVS Heritage Plus Archive

Photos and memories

Photo from WRVS Heritage Plus Archive

The group signatures

Photo from WRVS Heritage Plus Archive

Personalised cups

Photo from WRVS Heritage Plus Archive

Tea for two

Photo from WRVS Heritage Plus Archive

Seeds and shirt pockets

Photo from WRVS Heritage Plus Archive

Same Sky introduction

Photo from WRVS Heritage Plus Archive

The cake stand

Photo from WRVS Heritage Plus Archive

Partnerships

Portslade WRVS recently set up this project in conjunction with Brighton based award winning arts charity Same Sky. The project was a partnership project with the above groups alongside the Trust for Developing Communities. It involved participants of the New Larchwood centre history group in Coldean, Brighton who are in their 80s.

Activities

Same Sky, along with a WRVS facilitator and with participants, spent ten weeks making an interactive tea service table with a beautiful memory based table cloth and personalised china tea plates, cups, saucers and cake stands with images fired onto them of favourite meals, reminiscences and sayings around food past.

Sound

There is also a oral history installation underneath the table which has sound files of participants talking about their memories of food and allotments. It is six place settings, one chair (with headphones), an oval table, the tea service and the sound equipment. It was finished in August 2008 and WRVS Heritage Plus is currently looking for venues to exhibit the tea service until November 2010.

It is a beautifully made interactive installation and something that is of interest across generations as art, and of historical value. It is possible to have the installation for a short time or for an extended period.