What do you get when you bring four leading talents from the British design and creative scene together with a mission to do something very cool for cancer? Memories is a collective of 144 British and international artists who have each designed and donated a bespoke work of art to illustrate and interpret 12 true life stories of loss and survival from cancer.
Memories is the brainchild of four well-known, independent UK-based creatives: Stuart Boyd, Antony Kitson, Rishi Sodha and Garrick Webster, who came together with a desire to do something by the creative industry to help people who are being touched by cancer today. Their personal ethos is motivated by having been touched in some way in their own lives by cancer.
The artists include Vaughan Oliver, Si Scott, Deane Cheuk, Mario Hugo, Gary Taxali and Autumn Whitehurst and hail from cities around the globe: London, Paris, New York, Barcelona, Queensland, Bangkok, Rio de Janeiro, Santiago and more.
Memories will change the way its owners think about cancer. Its approach removes fear by immersing the reader in a carnival of human creativity, showing the power of our race to grab life by the scruff of the neck and enjoy it, whatever the adversity.
"We have been privileged to see and been moved by the total honesty in each of the stories," commented Laura Lee, chief executive of Maggie's. "Inside the book are a dozen wonderfully written texts by people who have survived cancer, or lost a loved one to what we hope will one day be a curable disease. Each touching work is complemented with 12 illustrations by different artists who have interpreted the stories visually in their way. The end result of Memories delivers a positive atmosphere that is totally in keeping with what Maggie's does every day."
"The stories in the book are all very emotional - they give reason for great sympathy, and also for lots of hope," said Garrick Webster, co-producer and editor of Memories. "All the ideas, feelings and experienced only seemed to bring the best out of the creative people involved and the way the artists have responded to the text is astounding. The result is something very inspiring and very powerful too."
Memories is more than simply a book about the big C. It takes a subject that has touched just about everyone's life, turns it on its head in a master-stroke of lateral thinking, and truly celebrates the way cancer can move the human spirit to make really good things happen.