Relax, Look and Imagine

Explore artworks from the Fitzwilliam Museum’s collection through seven new films that enable you to relax and delve into paintings from the comfort of your own home.

Drawing on the established practice of the 'Dance with the Museum' programme, co-created with sheltered housing residents across the city of Cambridge, these films have been created in response to the needs and parameters of our health and residential care setting partners, including Addenbrooke’s Hospital, but can be enjoyed by all.

Anxiety has been identified as a real challenge at this time of lockdown, so creating video content that can be accessed when people are able, that captured the relaxation, immersive slow looking process and invitations to escape and imagine, was seen by all as something that would be of great benefit.

The below seven films have been made by Toby Peters and narrated by the 'Dance with the Museum' programme artist Filipa Pereira-Stubbs, with the artworks in each chosen for their beauty. Watch all seven films and take an opportunity to form a personal relationship with one of the Fitzwilliam’s paintings! It is hoped more will follow too.

1. Springtime by Claude Monet
2. The Gust of Wind by Pierre-Auguste Renoir
3. Children Paddling at Walberswick by Philip Wilson Steer
4. The Return from the Fields by Pierre-Auguste Renoir
5. Apple Trees in Blossom by Antoine Chintreuil
6. 94 Degrees in the Shade by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema
7. Rue à Louveciennes by Alfred Sisley

The films form one of four interlinked activity strands for the Relax, Look and Imagine project, the others being: telephone conference calls, postcards & posters and art activity & postcard exchange packs. Read more about the project in Learning Associate, Ruth Clarke’s, University of Cambridge Museums' blog post.

22 May 2020