The After Party Cocktail Hours was our monthly opportunity for Cocktails volunteers to catch up and get creative together, send messages and produce collaborative artworks for residents, care staff and volunteers we were missing.

At April’s Cocktail Hour with Mia Harris, we explored portraiture, party games and enjoyed an After Party from within our Colour Mood Scenes.

At May’s Cocktail hour with Kathy Horak-Hallett and guest artist Kweku Sackey – we explored our Dream Dinner Parties together (with outfits inspired by our dream party guests.) We explored collage, sound and storytelling together, with a special performance from Kweku, all the way from Sheffield! Participants were invited to ‘Raise a Toast’ to a fellow party go-er with audio files contributing to an interactive artworks produced by Kathy. (Listen to Kweku’s toast below, accompanied by a collage by Kathy, of Kweku at a party!) Follow Kweku’s projects here.

At June’s Cocktail Hour hosted by Magic Me’s Sarah and Phoebe, we thought we’d catch up on After Party Artists Creative Actions so far, from the great outdoors! Joining from our mobile devices, we went foraging together in our gardens, patios and outdoor spaces looking for materials to create an invitation to our Dream Garden Dinner Parties, inspired by artist’s Kathy Horak-Hallett actions. While foraging, we used our phone cameras to document our journey, sharing different textures and making a collaborative video collage in the zoom window. We finished off the session with some more ‘Toasting’ to residents / care staff and song dedications, which will be shared in artist Shepherd Manyika’s Sound Selecta playlist later this summer.