Cambridge Curiosity and Imagination is an arts and well-being charity working with artists to build creatively healthy communities. We enable people of all ages to discover their own powers of imagination and curiosity and enjoy living, learning and working alongside each other.  

Every one of its projects makes me see things strangely again, tips a little more wonder back into the world.
Robert Macfarlane, CCI Patron

Our current events and most recent projects can be discovered below. You can also support this valuable work by making a donation towards our charitable activities. All gifts large and small can really make a difference. Don’t forget our shop selling CCI publications and prints - this provides an important source of income for our work.

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Creative Care Invitations

Free to download resources for all ages. Supporting curiosity and imagination in lockdown.

01/05/2020
Poems for our NHS

Taking Note poets share messages of support for Addenbrooke’s Hospital

24/04/2020
NHS Super Heroes

Create your own NHS Heroes

24/04/2020
Free wild exchange games

A collection of free games for creative adventurers of any age to play anywhere.

02/04/2020
An orchestra of children

A soundscape for the ‘forest of imagination’ created by 51 children.

30/03/2020
Re-imagining the familiar

Observations of Murray Edwards Gardens by ArtScapers help us see the space afresh.

12/03/2020
A return visit

ArtScapers return to Girton College but this time the sun was shining.

11/03/2020
Please pick flowers

ArtScapers discover a place of architecture, scent and a giant nest in Murray Edwards Gardens

25/02/2020
Tigers and cool trees

ArtScapers explore ideas of forests as they discover Girton College grounds.

24/02/2020
Starting with a story

New ArtScapers create a forest of trees as they begin working together in Eddington.

12/02/2020
Wild exploring – a CCI game in Aquila Magazine

New in the February edition.

07/02/2020
I can create – Workshop delegate, January 2020

Feedback from workshops for early years educators at Brent’s Inspiring Creativity Conference.

31/01/2020
Creativity as Pratice

Four spaces for early career Artist Educators on new programme.

01/01/2020
Lost Words for Cambridgeshire

Free books for all primary schools in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough.

01/08/2018
PropsBox

An inviting collection of playful props and games for families to engage with as they choose whilst exploring galleries and museums. PropsBoxes can be played with when visiting Kettle's Yard Gallery and Wysing Arts Centre.

26/03/2014
Inside the teacher there is the person
The last session of our Creativity as Practice course with St John’s School.
Celebrating Green Spaces
A ladybird running….a dragon fly taking off….exploring the fantastical sounds all around us.
A first ArtScapers residency
Twenty artists worked in the studio of the University of Cambridge Faculty of Education.
Into the woods
Our Histon explorers and artists visit the local woods.
Conversations across the ages
Sharing drawings, memories and stories as the Artists and Explorers chat with residents at Bramley Court Care Home.
I am Reggie the dormouse
Day 1 of our Fantastical Histon project.
Reimagining the familiar
Exploring ideas of knowing a place, of fantastical mapping and adventuring.
Waves, arcs and sparks
What can 360 ArtScapers create together in one day?
Out and About in 2019
ArtScapers began the year with a day in the woods.
Exploring the unexpected
Taking a still life of unexpected objects as a starting point.
Space
Session 3 of Creativity as Practice with St John’s College School.
The Art of Reading
Huge temporary artwork on Cambridge building site created by 420 children.
Special offer on CCI publications
Three publications for £10.00
Taking Note - poetry in moments
This collection of poetry offers new glimpses into some of the extraordinary worlds that make up Cambridge University Hospitals.
Children Leading
Session 2 of Creativity as Practice with St John’s College School.
Generous Environments
Session 1 of Creativity as Practice with St John’s College School.
Launch of Storey’s Field Centre
ArtScapers created new cityscapes for opening event.
Fantastical Bats and Habitats
Highlights from our community day with Offord Primary School.
Being bats
Searching for signs of animal occupation in the local church.
How do the bats get in and out?
Children in Offord create structures for animals
The most delicate thing in the world
ArtScapers find inspiration for creative and imaginative making.
Communities for all
Young and old ArtScapers discuss communities together.
A nest for a fat pigeon
Offord children think about where animals make their homes.
Would you like fire coming out of your ankle?
Exploring the relationships between human and animal ecology.
Friend old friend
A song of love and friendship for a newt by Alesia (7)
Sharing ArtScaping
Alper explained it as ‘making things your own way’.
Different ideas bring different drawings
ArtScapers immerse themselves in newts.
Muster Point as underground space
ArtScapers create their own fantastical animals and their underground habitats.
Only for Wren
New ArtScapers think about wrens, the king of birds.
João (nurse) and son Oliver
Oliver is almost two now and loved seeing his Taking Note photo.
Wild Exchange Games - for anyone to play anywhere
A new CCI resource for creative adventurers.
Eve Lacey (poet)
Memory Bone is a new poem for the Addenbrooke’s community by poet Eve Lacey.
Fact and fiction in a garden full of stories
Wild exchange workshops in a Cambridge College garden.
Dr Mike More (Chair, Cambridge University Hospitals)
I was born in Scotland and brought up there until I was 10.
New ArtScapers
Undergraduates from Anglia Ruskin University explore ArtScapers.
Wild exchanges in Emmanuel College Gardens
You are where family workshops for the Festival of Ideas.
A many layered map
Discover more about our new map for Love's Farm.
Sabrina, local resident
I just came here to do my shopping today - and this just happened.
Autumn (patient) and Rahma
We’re going to keep these poem pills and read them again.
Elizabeth (patient)
The weather was lovely so I took the poems and the cordial for walk.
An everlasting tea party
ArtScapers of all ages think about new communities at the Open Eddington weekend.
Who can I be now?
A wild exchange with Kevin Jones, former Headmaster at St John’s College School
Places, names and invisible lands
A new wild exchange with Dr Kevin Hughes from the British Antarctic Survey.
Esme (talking with Filipa at a Taking Note pop-up event)
Esme (talking with Filipa at a Taking Note pop-up event)
Mel, medical photographer
Mel, medical photographer
Allan, Transfusion Specialist Lead for the Pathology Partner
Allan, Transfusion Specialist Lead for the Pathology Partnership
Snowdrops and superpowers
A wild exchange with Flis Plent, Cambridge University Botanic Gardens.
The Black Ground: Bideford Black
A wild exchange with artist and researcher, Lydia Halcrow.
A sky goddess, underground discoveries & Minerva world
24 hours of adventuring with the community of Love’s Farm.
A Stork’s Nest on Addenbrooke’s Chimney
A new story created by the Shelford Dementia Carers group.
We seriously did see a spaniel
New wild exchanges with families at the Forest of Imagination in Bath.
Fantastical Love’s Farm
A creative adventure for the whole community
Creative adventuring for a whole school
420 children were invited to have a taste of Fantastical Cambridgeshire.
Maybe…what if…perhaps
Researcher Gabby Arenge observes how ArtScapers is a place of possibility.
Can we get in it?
ArtScapers think about the underground waste system.
Sounds and animations
Extraordinary sounds and animation moments collected during the first Offord project.
A many layered map
Discover more about our new map for The Offords.
Our fantastical map
Goldfinches gathered all their experiences over the past weeks.
Walking the Landscape
Our last residency day with the Goldfinches.
Mapping Aunties Woods
Goldfinches finished their last morning in Auntie’s woods.
The Corn Field of Happiness
Rediscovering the local landscape through walking thinking drawing naming adventuring.
Frank and ‘Nellie’ the Elephant
Sharing conversations through clay.
It’s a circle, it keeps going inside
Poems are created in response to a morning out adventuring.
What lies beneath
Bones from the Museum of Zoology open up new explorations.
It’s very very very deep
Heading out for Fantastical adventures despite the weather.
It’s the future
ArtScapers as explorers and prospectors.
Archaeology of now
Inviting ArtScapers to look differently at their school.
The comfort of guinea pigs
Reflecting on memories of hospital together.
Miniature and Immensity
‘The trees were three and half people’ – exploring ways of noticing and measuring around Love’s Farm.
Ginormous Trees and Mrs Toller
Children create new characters for their Fantastical Love's Farm.
It’s very fascinating to me
Young carers respond to the Addenbrooke’s Museum.
Using clay to animate ideas
Shelford’s dementia support group join our Addenbrooke’s programme.
Celebrating children’s ideas
Work from creative projects with two classes of children now on display in Addenbooke’s Hospital.
A pig washed with wood
Exploring our local woods.
How do you fold?
Thinking about what a map might contain.
Ava Alice (16), Active Board Representative
I took this on my last day at Bradwell-on-sea.
Fantastical Offords Community Day
Highlights from an amazing day of adventuring.
Borrowed stories and underground eggs
Meet a fantastical 28-legged creature created by the youngest children at Offords.
Eesha (16), ACTIVE Board representative
I go as a volunteer to the care home at the top of my road.
Lynne, Patient Experience Representative
This is my ledge. I come out here every day.
I love Nature…
Children in Love's Farm look hard at their outside spaces.
Pictures of Adventures
Extraordinary pictures emerge as children at Round House think about using sketchbooks.
Paris (16), Active Board Representative
I used to really like coming to see this swirly thing when I used to come in for my operations.
Old Mags and the Stolen Baby
Children from Offord begin to create their own animated fantastical film.
Bob can talk to his friend through his hair!
Girton ArtScapers complete a miniature model town of new entities and communities.
Taking a Line for a Walk
The children of Roundhouse Primary School begin their Fantastical Cambridgeshire discoveries.
We have been drawing all day
Roundhouse children relish their first day of exploring their school grounds through drawing and looking.
24 hours of wild adventuring
Thinking about our Fantastical Offords Community Day
Wolf carpet and a boxing ring
Re-imagining our rooms and creating new spaces with Girton ArtScapers.
A beginning
Staff at Round House Primary School create beautiful and strikingly individual maps.
Object Poems
Humour, drama and poetry collide.
Blue Blood Spider
A blue blood spider that heals by Ben.
Pocket Poems
‘The sea is blue, I wish it was glued onto me’ – a pocket poem by Archie.
Nurse ‘Medicine’
Nurse of the future by Aleena.
Word Duets
‘Takeover hospital’ - playing with combining words and images and unusual word pairings.
X-Ray Visions
Amazing images emerged as the children thought about x-rays.
Poetry and Medicine
‘Poetry calms you down…makes you feel better’ – the children begin to play with words.
Conkery and Gonga
Children from Girton Primary School join the ArtScapers community.
Injection Robots and Hovering Janitors
Brilliant ideas and questions are beginning to emerge after the children visited Addenbrooke’s Hospital.
Walking on the wildside
A wild exchange with Fredi Devas, producer and director of Planet Earth II:‘Cities’.
The secret life of plants
Fantastically detailed, accurate and adventurous observations emerge at Offord.
Spectrograms and singing ice
A wild exchange with bio-acoustic engineer William Seale.
This Doctor might have pizza in his beard
Addenbrooke’s Museum prompts new stories and questions.
Prompted by the leeches jar
Extraordinary insects with healing powers are reimagined for the Addenbrooke’s Museum.
Doctors….Dog-Tors !
Imagining together the people who work at Addenbrooke’s Hospital.
St Philip’s Medical Cabinet
Remembering Addenbrooke’s museum and thinking about the future.
Fantastical plant-hunting
Exploring alongside the oldest children in Offord Primary School.
The fox and rabbit are calling for help
Children explore how sounds can be drawn.
What is a tea house?
Mayfield ArtScapers build new spaces for wandering.
Playing with time
Children from Mayfield Primary create Artscaper time.
Animating the archives
Children from St Philips Primary are the first to help us start this process.
Superheroes and bat sounds
Experimenting with sounds as a way of exploring at Offord.
Meeting real people
This year’s ArtScapers meet some of the development team.
Advice for new Artscapers
Instructions for creating recycled houses written by our first ArtScapers.
Adventures in time and space
Our programme of events for the 2016 Festival of Ideas.
A world of sounds
What are the everyday and extraordinary sounds of life and how can we illustrate them?
ArtScaping in the city
New fantastical buildings join our collection.
Over 200 layers
A key for just some of the elements in this new fantastical map.
Robert Macfarlane
New patron for CCI
Maps from other minds
Children from Offord imagine being someone else as they explore.
Orchard calligraphy
Sparking an enthusiasm for writing
We made ink!
Children at Offord find a new way to put their orchard on paper.
Golden apples, mouse maps and an orchard fox
Our Fantastical Cambridgeshire project with Offord Primary School begins.
Journeys, landmarks, night and day
Offord Primary School’s Orchard is mapped in many ways.
From Eynesbury to Stockport
A fantastical house exchange as part of our wild exchanges
New inhabitants for Eynesbury
Wild exchanges at our first Fantastical Blitz day
Of seahorses and secret jewels
Our first meeting with Offord Primary School staff.
Our first fantastical blitz
Words and pictures from our day of adventuring with the Eynesbury Community
Miró-like shapes and spaces
Artist Gallit Shaltiel offers extraordinary new drawings as a wild exchange.
Observation and fantasy
Artist Mary O'Malley's thoughts on drawing and inventing nature, in a transatlantic Wild Exchange with children's work from Eynesbury.
A poem of a dream of the woods
Poems by Jackie Kay and children from The Spinney Primary School
Mary O’Malley
Flowers, maps and precision in our second Wild Exchange for Fantastical Cambridgeshire.
Producing the first Fantastical Days
Artist Helen Stratford shares some of the thinking behind her planning.
Drawing and doodling
A first wild exchange for Fantastical Cambridgeshire with visual artist Gallit Shaltiel.
Hannah, Obstetrics and Fetal Maternal Medicine Consultant
It was such a beautiful moment for me when I saw how this group of head nurses from Metapan Hospital.
Created by Lucas
The fantastical creature that clutches hold of our logo was drawn by Lucas (6).
Joao, nurse
I just love the fact that after a 12.5 hour shift I arrive home and put my baby on my lap and smell that baby smell from his hair.
Put what you like on the map, anything, …
The children reflect on the importance of using their imagination as they map their local area.
Beginning the brilliant fantastical map
Working altogether gave us courage
A map of practical and extraordinary things
Mapping together the practical and extraordinary in Eynesbury
Year Five lead the way
Going far together as the class lead us to their chosen spaces.
Creative Adventuring with Year Ones
Working with our imaginations on the banks of the river Ouse.
Bringing our imagination into the landscape
A final day of adventuring led by the children.
Which way is north?
Eynsebury children extended their mapping research to the market last week.
Colouring the Map
Testing out colours prompted powerful images of journey stories at Eynesbury.
Inside people is a heart…
The children create poems inspired by their time in the local church and school surroundings.
One minute St Neots, next moment the world
What happens when you only have a minute to respond
The future is a tree
The children wrote ‘circle’ poems in response to our adventures in local spaces.
The Village inside the Town
What happens if we explore as if visiting Eynesbury together for the very first time?
What’s Church got to do with art?
Noticing the calm and space of Eynesbury church.
Paul, staff
A happy moment is the first time my daughter walked outside.
Dinosaurs don’t need maps
A first day of creative adventuring to ‘set minds free’
Rachelle, staff
Walking my dog at 5.30am and the sun rising and a new day beginning.
Clare, staff
For me a lot of happiness comes through music.
Is Holland pink?
Thinking about adventures and maps with children of Eynesbury.
Thinking about ‘ArtScaper-ness’
Artist Susanne Jasilek writes about the challenge of planning these workshops.
Being an Artscaper
What does it mean to be an ArtScaper? …to ArtScape?
Wendy, parent
Watching my children discover something new. It’s so lovely to watch.
Under the same sky
New characters and communities are created inspired by Ruth Proctor’s artwork.
Louise, patient (10)
I'm mostly happy when my friends and family come to visit in hospital.
Thinking about sky
Our new ArtScapers explored their own public art piece - We are all under the same sky.
Owen, patient (6)
I like playing the instruments in music.
Joe, patient (11)
When my Grandad comes to visit me, he tells me jokes what are too rude to mention!
David, patient
A little while ago they bought in a machine that helped me stand up.
Lucy, patient
Dancing 4 times a week is on my mind.
Annie, patient
It was seeing my grand-daughters after I’d been in a coma.
Imagining our future selves
The Artscapers explored huge numbers, future spaces and their future selves in their final visit.
Betty, patient
I did so want a boy and I had one.
Norah, patient
I didn't marry as I knew I always had to be in charge!
Ruthie, nurse
I like going out window shopping.
Noticing St Neots
Artists Sally Todd and Filipa Pereira-Stubbs get to know St Neots and here Sally Todd shares their first impressions.
Introducing Fantastical Cambridgeshire
We met with the teaching staff at Eynesbury Primary School, introduced the ideas and principles of the project.
Imagining the future
Our Artscapers create a city of connections and layers and levels
Rachel, patient
Being supported with cuddles from staff whilst being given life changing challenges.
ArtScapers have arrived
Two classes have joined us to create new resources for the Public Art programme
Tom, visitor
Cycling here this morning I saw the cows back again on Midsummer Common.
Debbie, nurse
Sometimes just going home and listening to my children makes me happy.
Rose, volunteer
I’ve literally just had a chat with a very frail old man about steam engines.
Damian, Arts Programme
I always have a little chuckle as I read this on my way to the toilets.
Working with children’s ideas
Thinking together where children’s ideas can lead us as we consider our changing city.
What does an artist do?
Artist Ruth Ewan explains ‘I don’t make things, I make things happen’.
Mel, support services
One of my special moments each day is when my youngest son gives me a 20 second hug.
Debbie, nurse
I suppose for me personally, dancing make me happy.
Allison and Beth (sisters), Laundry
A while ago now we had to track down a lego-man that a little boy had lost.
Stephen, patient
I think the real trick actually is recognising a happy moment.
Sam, Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust
My favourite bit of the day is standing on my doorstep.
Susan, volunteer
We always have a hug - a special moment before we go our independent ways.
Denise, teacher
I sometimes think about the people who are up working in the cranes.
Ramez, Surgeon
Yesterday I saw how a student nurse helped a patient by going to sit with her in recovery.
Neil, Taking Note administrator
This is a 1930s Phinney-Walker Travel Alarm Clock which is a joy in itself.
John, volunteer
A smile on a young face is my moment I want to share with you from today.
Mavis, volunteer
I was here for 3 and half months as a patient after I got knocked off my bike.
Ruth, patient
My daughters have been looking after me so tenderly this afternoon.
Darren, Healthcare assistant
I smile when I’m dancing.
Ruth, patient
My daughter’s bear settled in and enjoying the computer.
Rosie, former nurse and patient
Swimming was one of the first things I did when I came home.
The Inspirers
Short film for 2016 International Women’s Day Event at Homerton College, University of Cambridge, celebrating just a few of the creative women and girls we have met in our work.
First school partner
Co-creating resources for NW Cambridge Public Art Programme
Wild Connections Workshops
Reflective sessions in the woods at Spinney Primary School for educators and practitioners to build connections between wild exploration and learning.
Review: ‘Jewel of a booklet’
Richard Hickman, University of Cambridge Faculty of Education, on Outside Inside.
Review: Not ‘just messing about’
Storyteller and educator Marion Leeper reviews Outside/Inside
Review of Ways into Hinchingbrooke Country Park
Writer and researcher Patrick Yarker reviews our first fantastical guide.
Outside/Inside
Offered as a gallery of paired images of outside experiences with inside explorations, this new CCI resource sets out to ‘excite and stimulate’ thinking about outdoor learning and how to connect it to the classroom.
Running into adventure
A short film exploring the opportunities for physical and imaginative adventuring with nursery children in their local wild space.
'Here I come to the jungle'
A short film about storying with four and five years olds in their local nature reserve.
Signs, Structures and Surprises
Over 50 people joined us for a wild art workshop in Somersham Nature Reserve one rainy morning in May.
We’re a little bit lost aren’t we?
An article from Forum advocating an approach to outdoor exploration that begins by welcoming the unknown and possibly disorientating aspects of wild places.
Children Take the Lead
An independent evaluation of the Children take the lead research programme by Joanna Holland.
A Story of Smallness and Light
Our second in the series of booklets exploring an aspect of a Footprints project in detail – this time focusing on a particular fascination with smallness and light that emerged amongst some of the reception class exploring Bramblefields Nature Reserve in Cambridge during summer 2012.
You are where?
Based around a panel discussion, this event brought together artists, explorers, thinkers and the children’s voices from our Hinchingbrooke project.
Re-Imagining Materials
A programme of workshops and events for schools and families to invite creative re-imagining of recycled materials.
Ways into Hinchingbrooke Country Park – a fantastical guide
CCI's first fantastical guide - a richly illustrated 40 page book that invites readers to see Hinchingbrooke Country Park as never before.
37 Shadows: listening to children’s stories from the woods
A richly illustrated booklet of children's stories and pictures from the Histon Children's Centre Footprints project in Homefield Park, Histon.
Time to C to B
A playful walk for families offered alongside a creative workshop to explore the new artworks and spaces commissioned for the CB1 area of Cambridge.
Cambridgeshire Footprints: 2012 Evaluation
An evaluation report commissioned by Cambridgeshire Early Years for the work with children, staff and parents from Kidzone, a nursery in Whittlesey, and Shirley Primary School, Cambridge, throughout the summer term 2012.
Deakin Learning Centre
A programme of creative consultation to inform plans for the new learning centre on the Addenbrooke's Hospital site, working with staff and students from Cambridge Regional College and local schools.
A Trail of Imagination and Curiosity
A playful trail inviting families to discover together as they wander around this beautiful space in the centre of Cambridge. Commissioned by Friends of Mill Road Cemetery.
Igniting a fuse
Subtitled 'developing the creative practices of primary school educators', this fully illustrated 64 page book offers an account of the learning journeys undertaken by a group of educators on Creativity as Practice.
Adventuring in a Cambridge Forest
An article from the Refocus Journal about Footprints work with Colleges Nursery, Cambridge.
National Poetry Day 2019

Two Taking Note poems unveiled at Addenbrooke’s Hospital.

Working in St Neots

Here are some key outcomes from our work with three schools in St Neots from 2016-18.

The Museum of the Wild and the Wonder

Co-creating a new space for Open Eddington 2019

An A to Z for Trumpington

A creative resource for future public art commissions linked to new developments in this area of South Cambridge. Commissioned by Future City.

A Trolley of Ideas

A professional development programme exploring creative practice for the Playworkers team from Addenbrooke's Hospital.

Working to save the world

Our final day with Histon Early Years Centre.

 
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