Create to connect
We presented a month of daily creative challenges for May to keep you connected, curious and creative at home.
Download a free activity pack to help you engage your communities in the challenges – online and offline.
At 64 Million Artists we believe that everyone is creative, and that when we are creative it has a positive impact on our lives and the world around us. We run national creativity programmes by crowdsourcing fun, quick and accessible daily prompts that invite people to ‘do, think and share’ within a supportive online community.
COVID-19 presented sudden and unexpected challenges that many of us have never had to navigate before. Scary times often make us want to retreat but our recent data shows that when we create it can be an opening up for connection and can significantly improve our mental health and wellbeing. We have been working to support our growing community with these programmes, designed to keep us connected, curious and creative in uncertain times.
Throughout May 2020, we ran ‘Create To Connect’ in partnership with 30 UK-based organisations. Read all about the co-creation of the project, our distributed facilitation model and the way in which the 64 Million Artists online community reaches and engages others offline in our case study below.
Participant Testimonials
"I started to see art everywhere, and started creating again! AND, I could do it all alone at home in circumstances that have previously made me feel alone and lonely."
"I felt very connected again to people and life!"
Download your free activity pack
We ran Create to Connect in May, but you can take part all year round! Here, you can download the free tailored activity pack to help you engage your communities (workplaces, students, families, service users, groups, neighbours…) in the challenges – online and offline.
As well as information about the project, it contains tips for facilitating a simple creative session online, and ideas for offline distribution.
Most importantly, however, is that this pack contains all of the 31 creative challenges – meaning that you have the inside scoop! This pack is an active resource for you to swap around, adapt, edit, play with and prepare for the challenges to use them in a way that works for you. We hope you have some fun with it.
Simply click on the links below to download your pack, and feel free to spread the word to others looking for accessible creative resources. Please note the challenges are the same in both packs – the school's one has a focus on engaging children at school (in the building and at home.)
Find guidance on working safely with children and vulnerable groups here.
EVERYDAY CREATIVITY, WELLBEING AND MENTAL HEALTH
64 Million Artists have been exploring the relationship between everyday creativity and mental health and wellbeing. Our flagship campaign, The January Challenge, engaged over 30,000 members of the public in a month-long creative challenge earlier this year, and 98% said the experience has a positive impact on their wellbeing.
When times feel uncertain and everything seems like it’s shutting down rather than opening up, how do we begin to talk about creativity? Scary times often make us want to retreat, but our recent data shows that when we create, it can be an opening up for connection and can significantly improve our mental health and wellbeing. What we need more than anything right now is to stay connected (just not by holding hands).
A creative challenge is a playful prompt to inspire accessible creative action. Challenges are varied and explore all sorts of creative forms, from dancing to writing and building to exploring.
A challenge can take you as long as you like – it might take 5 or 10 minutes, or you could take your time and see where it takes you. Some people will do 1 challenge, others will do 31 challenges.
Some people will share their work online, some offline, and some will choose not to share at all. Some people like to think about how they would approach the challenge, and some simply love watching what other people get up to.
All of the people that take part are doing it right.
For more information or to ask any questions – please get in touch with Jemima Frankel at [email protected]
