We are celebrating the amazing outcomes from the second year of Bridges, our three year young people’s programme at Kettle’s Yard.
This year was led by socially engaged artist Maraid McEwan. Maraid said:
The Bridges project was a truly expansive experience for my practice as a socially engaged artist working in public space. Being part of a project that genuinely valued longevity, care, and sustained attention is rare and I feel we really achieved that over the course of the year. What stayed with me most was the strong sense of community: the generosity of the groups, the emotional openness we brought into each session, and the expansive, abstract thinking that emerged as we reflected on where and how we live.
Bridges is rooted in a powerful aim: to connect young people with creativity, with the city of Cambridge, and with themselves. Across two projects and groups, young participants explored what it means to belong, to be seen, and to shape the cultural life of the place they call home.
Both groups worked from the same guiding enquiry, ‘what and where do we connect to?’, but approached it through different lenses shaped by their individual experiences. What unfolded was joyful and deeply meaningful, a testament to what can happen when young people are given time, trust and artistic agency.
Come by for Tea: North Cambridge Academy
Funded by the Mildred Fund
Come by for Tea was a collaborative project with 12 students aged 14 to 16 from North Cambridge Academy. The project explored themes of welcome and inclusion, inviting the group to reflect on where in Cambridge they felt a sense of belonging and connection, and where they did not.
These reflections became the starting point for a wide-ranging creative process using collage, embroidery, ceramics, textile dyeing and ink drawing.
The group took inspiration from Kettle’s Yard founder, Jim Ede’s, belief that the house is only truly alive when it is used, and from his practice of inviting visitors to come in for tea at set times. The young people centred the table as both a symbol and object, as a place of gathering, sharing and conversation. From this idea emerged a series of hand-crafted tablecloths and ceramic vessels, each carrying personal marks, stories and gestures of belonging.
The young artists then photographed a series of temporary pop-up installations across Cambridge city centre, including at King’s College, the Fitzwilliam Museum and the Market Square. In these spaces, a table became a quiet but powerful intervention, an invitation to pause, connect and consider young people’s place in the city’s future. By situating their work directly within public space, the group asserted their presence and voice within the cultural landscape of their city.
To celebrate the culmination of the project, the young people hosted their own tea party at Kettle’s Yard, inviting parents and friends into the space. Photographs of the group taken across the city by Charlie Bryan were displayed throughout the Kettle’s Yard house, shown in dialogue with artworks from the collection. Seeing their experiences, identities and creative journeys reflected within the historic interiors created a powerful sense of belonging and recognition.
During their celebration event at Kettle’s Yard, conversations with the students were recorded and later developed into a sound piece by artist Hannah Kemp-Welch. The audio work captures the young people’s reflections about how they feel about Cambridge, offering another way to encounter their ideas about connection, belonging and their relationship to the city.
Through these explorations, the group responded directly to the shared enquiry question, considering what and where they connect to and how their relationship with the city shapes their sense of belonging. Listen to the young people’s reflections below.
Seeing the Unseen: Young Carers with Centre 33
FUNDED by Tamsin and Stewart Wilkinson, the penchant foundation and THE DE REUS FOUNDATION
Alongside this, artist Maraid worked with a group of young carers from Centre 33, an organisation that supports young people with caring responsibilities, on a project titled Seeing the Unseen. Responding to the same question, what and where do we connect to?, this group approached it through the lens of their lived experience as young carers.
Across four collaborative workshops, participants explored themes of visibility, perspective and change, using collage, drawing and construction techniques to create hanging mobiles and illuminated lanterns. These delicate, layered artworks became vessels for complex emotional landscapes, touching on loneliness, grief, discovery and acceptance. The young people then photographed their works inside the Kettle’s Yard house, carefully staging light, shadow and composition. The resulting photographic series offers a moving glimpse into moments that often go unnoticed: the quiet, unseen realities of caring responsibilities carried by young people across Cambridgeshire.
The project also looks toward the future. Centre 33 is currently redeveloping a new centre, and the group chose to create an artwork for the space. When the building opens, a series of Perspex wall panels will be installed, each featuring one of the lantern photographs made in Kettle’s Yard. The group titled each image with an emotion they felt a young person arriving at Centre 33 might be experiencing.
As one participant explained:
It can be there on the wall and just look beautiful. Or if a young person coming to Centre 33 is finding it hard to talk about their experiences because they think no one understands, they can look at the titles of the artworks and know that we understand, that they are not the only one.
The images speak with honesty and vulnerability, while also holding resilience, imagination and pride. Together, they form a collective portrait of experience that is rarely centred, yet deeply important to see, and to recognise as part of the cultural fabric of Cambridge. Through the creation and titling of their images, the group demonstrated how connection can be built through visibility, shared feelings and reassurance.
We are looking forward to seeing how the work of the two groups develops over the final year of Bridges.
Bridges Year One
Community at Kettle's Yard
