Explore this new online exhibition to uncover hidden stories from Coram’s history as the Foundling Hospital alongside the experiences of care-experienced young people today.
In 2021, a group of care-experienced young people created a textile artwork titled ‘A Folded Reality’ as part of Coram’s Voices Through Time programme. The artwork is a blanket with illustrative panels inspired by the children of the Foundling Hospital. In designing their panels, the artist-makers explored themes of bedtime and dreaming. They imagined the feelings of the Foundlings and drew on their own experiences in the care system. The panels were sewn onto the blanket in layers, which are folded back to reveal hidden realities.
‘A Folded Reality: The Online Experience’ brings the blanket to new audiences, allowing them to uncover the stories contained within the panels while learning about the history that inspired them. The online experience also contains new insights from Voices Through Time participants about the blanket and its hidden realities, as well as new stories uncovered in Coram’s digitised Foundling Hospital Archive that resonate with the panels.
Beck Price, Coram’s Archivist, says:
“The blanket is a fascinating insight into the lived experiences of both past and present care-experienced young people. We hope that through the online experience, more people can learn about the real lives of Foundling Hospital children as well as the futures dreamed by care-experienced people today.”
The Stitch in Time project, which produced ‘A Folded Reality’, was run in partnership with the Foundling Museum. The project was part of Coram’s Voices Through Time: The Story of Care programme, made possible by the National Lottery Heritage Fund. The blanket was displayed at the National Trust property Quebec House (Kent) in March 2024.