Survival of the Kindest: Bobby Lloyd – The Community Table and Keeping Hope Alive
![\"Bobby](\"https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a0dd17780bd5e8e0f18d86b/1607968969735-IAJL2R576QVHHDXUVXTY/Bobby+Lloyd+and+her+maps?format=750w\")
THE IDEA THAT WE CAN IMAGINE ENABLES US TO SURVIVE BETTER IN THE WORLD. AND TO BE ABLE TO IMAGINE YOU NEED TO BE ABLE TO THINK AND SOMETIMES THINKING ALONGSIDE SOMEBODY ELSE MAKES THAT POSSIBLE […] WE THINK THOSE MOMENTS OF CONNECTION CAN SUSTAIN, OURSELVES AND OTHERS, EVEN IF ITS FOR A BRIEF PERIOD OF TIME, EVEN IF JUST TO BE ABLE TO SURVIVE THE REST OF THE AFTERNOON A BIT BETTER
This week Julian talks to art therapist, activist and author Bobby Lloyd. Bobby’s journey took her from volunteering in a Tibetan refugee camp in northern India just after having left school, to (years later) being an art therapist with the same charity and working with displaced persons all over the globe, particularly focusing on the Calais camps in the last few years.
The idea of home, for those of us who have one, is not something that we often think about but for Bobby it has been a focus of her work for many years. She works to get to grips with what she calls ‘a deep longing, a cultural disorientation, a yearning for home’ that refugees experience, and has spent years ‘trying to understand a bit about what home meant and wether you could take it with you, what did that mean? What was the internal understanding of home?’
As Bobby knew that in her hardest years having a sketchbook had been a resource and a source of comfort, she wanted to ‘take the art out into the community, and put the art into service’. Bobby’s mission is undoubtedly one of compassion, and despite what seems like an interminably and formidably hopeless space she continues to bring art, and generously share its healing properties. As she says ‘Art doesn’t belong to me and it doesn’t belong to art therapy’. By bringing it to some of the hardest places Bobby also brings hope, connection, and possibilities.
THE VISUAL ARTS CAN RECONNECT [US] WITH HOME
Bobby is introduced by Maddy who can be heard in episode 14
Bobby’s Twitter, her books can be found here and here
Art Refuge Website, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram – please donate, follow and share
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/survival-of-the-kindest/id1525026504?i=1000502361065