The Hug Exchange
A participatory arts project
Project collaboration & website design
Date: November 2020 - November 2021
Collaborators: The Dept. of Kindness & Compassion Revolution
Project overview: A 1-year digital participatory project in the covid-era which gathered together written “hug” submissions from across the globe to create an online random “hug generator”
Website platform: Wordpress
(website no longer available due to project end)
What I did
Working under The Dept. of Kindness, myself and artist Ali Brown collaborated with Mary Freer from Compassion Revolution to design and carry out a digital participatory arts project in the middle of the covid pandemic. At a time when people were having to isolate and distance themselves from one another, we set up a website to allow people to give and receive “hugs”. These came in the form of a written description or poem of a hug, which were free both to submit and receive.
The initial idea for the project came from Ali Brown, and I collaborated to help develop the project and turn the idea into reality online. I designed a website which included an area which would randomly generate & display a different “hug” on each website visit, as well as a form which allowed people to write and submit their own hugs to be displayed on the generator.
Highlights
Over 200 hugs submitted from 15 different countries around the world
More than 2,000 people receiving “hugs” through the website
The Hug Exchange was used as tool for connection and compassion at two of Compassion Revolution’s annual conferences in Australia
"Getting hugs reminds me of how much I am loved and appreciated."
— Lethu, Australia
