Reliquaries: a project with Foundling Fellow Grayson Perry

The Foundling Museum showcased clay reliquaries made during workshops led by artist and Foundling Fellow Grayson Perry with young mums and young people in care, adoption and supported housing from Coram.

All of the art in this unusual and personal exhibition has been inspired by objects in the British Museum and Foundling Museum and explores ideas around identity. Each of the reliquaries contains a private modern day token.

Grayson led ten young people on a tour of the British Museum where they studied a selection of reliquaries. The young people discussed, sketched and photographed the reliquaries. They also explored the Foundling Museum, which displays a permanent collection of tokens left by mothers with their children when they were admitted to the Foundling Hospital. These tokens were a unique means of identification. Taking part in a series of workshops with Grayson the young people presented their own personal objects that would act as modern day tokens, exploring ideas of identity. They individually planned their reliquaries, learning clay and glazing techniques under the guidance of Grayson. 

Grayson Perry is one of the Foundling Museum's Hogarth Fellows. The Foundling Museum holds an annual award of three Fellowships which identifies and celebrates the successors of the three great Foundling benefactors, the Coram, Hogarth and Handel of the twenty-first century. The Foundling Fellows are innovators in their field, with a commitment to working for children. In their Fellowship year they are invited to explore, renew and invigorate the powerful relationship between charity, vulnerable children and the arts, participating actively in the life of the Museum.

The Foundling Fellowship was established with the support of the Clore Duffield Foundation.

Images: © Foundling Museum