The Saatchi Gallery was the venue for the celebration of the inaugural Blue Creator Fund in partnership with Chelsea FC, the Chelsea FC Foundation and VERSUS. The celebration was for two aspiring creatives from underrepresented backgrounds who were each given £15,000 to produce a creative project about Chelsea and its community.
There were over 1,000 applications with the fund being awarded to aspiring jewellery designer Becky Gordon and emerging film director, and friend of the Paul Canoville Foundation, Xaymaca Awoyungbo. Becky has created Unsung, a capsule collection of Chelsea signet rings to champion 100 unsung heroes of Chelsea’s community using the strapline ‘Proper Chels’. Xaymaca has explored what it means to be Black and a Chelsea fan in his documentary film Blue is the Colour. Paul is a central figure to this having been interviewed for the documentary. While being interviewed on stage Xaymaca called out one player – Paul Canoville – which drew a respectful ripple of applause from some in the crowd.
Xaymaca’s documentary, Blue is the Colour, is available on YouTube https://youtu.be/9sKFUG-5ZT0?si=09BX3SMWz-vFr0Xh.
This was a celebration event with a number of familiar faces and friends of the PCF in attendance. Marcus, our COO, was there representing the foundation together with his daughter, Amelie.
The evening started with the MC for the evening, Mayowa Quadri, a Blue Creator Fund ambassador and head of brand at VERSUS, interviewing Chelsea FC Board Member, Barbara Charone who spoke about the importance of creativity and the need for creatives to be given the environment to brave and confident in their art whatever it may be. Barbara confirmed that next year there will be 5 winners awarded an increase on the 2 from this year. This was followed by a panel discussion where the importance of the Blue Creator fund was discussed with what it means to the creative community. Xaymaca and Becky were then interviewed, given the opportunity to discuss their projects that were very different from each other, and what they mean to them and the reach they have. It was great to hear Xaymaca giving a huge shout out to our founder Paul who features in his documentary!
After the interviews there was a thanks to the support from the team at Chelsea for putting on the event and then it was all about networking and seeing what was produced.
It was a wonderful evening with Marcus and Amelie having a great time and making new connections with whom to discuss and progress the PCF and the work being done now and moving forwards.
