Josh’s art illustrates hope for future during pandemic
An eight-year-old boy from Londonderry is the youngest person from the island of Ireland to have his work published in a collection of global lockdown writing.
Josh Cullen’s drawing of a sunflower is included in the 48-page digital book titled ‘Near and Far are all the same these days’.
The collection includes short stories, poems and drawings which capture people’s feelings and observations on lockdown and was coordinated in Northern Ireland by children’s writing centre, Fighting Words NI.
While this is the first time that Josh has participated in a Fighting Words NI project, he is already a huge fan of reading and is part of a group of local children who exchanged letters and drawings with residents of William Street Care Home in the city during lockdown.
Delighted that his drawing was used to illustrate ‘Near and Far’, Josh said; “I wanted to draw something, make a good piece of art.
“I love drawing. The message I wrote was about hope for the future because flowers kept growing even when everyone was in lockdown.”
Josh added that lockdown gave him more time to spend doing his favourite activity-reading. “I’ve read over 70 books and I got to see my friends from bookclub on Zoom.”
The Global Writing Lockdown project was launched in May by Danish organisation Ordskaelv, who collaborated with writing centres around the world, calling on poets, writers and artists to articulate what lockdown meant for them.
E