A ground breaking collaborative project, supported by Help Musicians, sharing stories of children, family, staff and musicians' experiences of health, music and hospitalisation through music and spoken word. The 1000 Days Project provides spaces for people to consider how stories of health and hospital experience can be told creatively, and reaches out across music, health and education communities.
1000 Days Project
The 1000 Days project is a music and spoken word collaboration between Dr Ros Hawley, Mark Fisher and Keisha Thompson
As part of the 2018 award-winning Songbirds Project at Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital, The 1000 Days Music and Arts Project is a new music and spoken word collaboration between Mark, Ros and spoken word artist Keisha Thompson.
The trio’s initial meeting resulted in Keisha recording 10 poems telling the stories of children, family and staff interactions with the musicians in hospital spaces, 6 of which the musicians added music to. This pilot highlights the potential for further artistic collaboration and together they will explore how artistic interpretations of experiences of music and hospitalisation can be used to share creative learning with wider audiences and break down barriers between music, medicine and healthcare.
Music is at the heart of many people’s strategies in dealing with challenges of ill health; the Fusion Fund research workshops will open new spaces for debate and discussion around artistic practice as a means of sharing research and raise awareness publicly of the increasingly prominent role music is playing in patient wellbeing in the UK. The artists will document the workshops online and use learning to develop a future performance, which will bring each artists’ work to greater prominence in Manchester and increase profile within arts, health and performance sectors in the UK and abroad.
1000 Days Collaboration:
Music & Spoken Word
“One day I woke up to find that I was a conductor,
my hands were moving around like the blades of a helicopter,
I didn’t realise what was happening at first, I was half sleep
then a beautiful sound strolled down my ear and plucked me from my dream”.
• Keisha Thompson/1000 Days/Conductor
Contact us
Get in touch with the 1000 Days Project team, to book a workshop and learn more about our work.
Manchester United Kingdom
