Anna has very kindly written us a guest blog about her involvement in her sister’s art projects.
Hi, my name is Anna and I am 19 years old. I volunteer in a charity shop and recently I modelled for my sister, Emily’s, Fine Art degree show.
Emily is a student at Coventry University and her work is all about Down’s syndrome awareness and fighting stigmas and stereotypes about people with Down’s syndrome.
I felt like a university student when I was helping Emily with her work. We took lots of photos in the very professional photography studios and I really enjoyed posing for her like a model. We had to have a few breaks as we couldn’t stop laughing! We filmed a video where we pulled stigmas about people with Down’s syndrome out of a hat and talked about them, proving that none of them are true and I am an individual!
My favourite piece of Emily’s work is her screen prints, I like how colourful it is, it was blue and yellow which are Down’s syndrome awareness colours and red which is my favourite colour. The prints show all of my emotions from lots of different angles – I like it because it’s all about me!
I am very proud of my sister for working so hard at university and I miss her when she has to stay in Coventry, but we stay in touch through Facetime and I visit her a lot! I have experienced university through my sister as I wasn’t allowed to go myself, we have lots of sleepovers where we stay in student accommodation and student houses which are a bit messy but lots of fun! I even visited Emily during her year abroad in Bologna, Italy, where I went night clubbing for the first time, met all her new friends and had pizza at 3’o’clock in the morning!
Emily has helped me write this blog so I can’t say anything nasty about her (I’m only joking.) I really enjoyed working together because it was lots of fun, we made some really great work and got a lot closer in the process. Also because we got a takeaway every time I came to help!
Thank you for this great blog Anna, it sounds like you and your sister have a wonderful relationship!