Puzzled: Piecing Together

A project by Caroline Wilkinson

Lewisham Arthouse, 140 Lewisham Way, SE14 6PD

10th - 26th of June 2022

12pm to 6pm. Closed on Mondays

In spring 2020, artist Caroline Wilkinson embarked on what became a community venture, offering an engrossing distraction during the first Covid lockdown. Drawing on her personal collection of jigsaws, she distributed puzzles to 90-plus Lewisham neighbours, friends and others responding through a local Facebook noticeboard. She now has a total of more than 100 completed jigsaws.

‘I hoped that, by being engaged in this focused activity, people might experience an element of control and calm during a period of acute uncertainty, anxiety and mortality,’

The finished jigsaws will be displayed across the gallery from floor to ceiling. They show a range of generic photographic scenes, from cities and rural landscapes to cottages and kittens, covering a period that spans the 1970s to the 2000s. Each image is a record of its era, and this exhibition is also a reflection of our own recent times, bringing people together in an activity they were sharing, although they were physically apart and in isolation from others.