Chapel Arts Studios, Andover: Educational Project Residency

As I heard back from Millie to say that I could come in Tuesday 21st I spent Monday preparing a presentation about myself as well as a brief overview of the project for the children. After being at university for the last 3 years and prior to that being in college/school, I felt suddenly out of my comfort zone making a presentation for children and not something official that would be graded. I made a couple of tries to start making slides but both times I knew they were just too formal. I had a chat with Dave who showed me some examples of presentations he had done for children. I realised what was missing from my presentation was myself! I had been trying to make it formal with just the information instead of introducing them to me, when talking to Dave about how sensitive and personal my project is going to be, he emphasised that I need to be open with them so they feel comfortable to do the same with me. After this I found myself a lot more relaxed and created a presentation I am much happier with!

On Tuesday it turned out I didn’t need to prepare anything for seeing the children, we were just going to have a 10 minute chat about it after I spent the morning observing them. I met with Millie before school started, she gave me a bit of background on the children that she knew about, explaining why they had been chosen for the project. I then spent a few hours in different classes observing a few of the children and making notes on how they behaved. The main aspect I picked up on with this group was that one of the children was very low ability; he struggled with his reading and writing as well as following the teacher in general throughout the lesson. I noticed that all of the teachers gave the children time limits for all of the tasks they were given as well as using countdowns to get them all to be quiet and pay attention. They have access to about 8 computers as well, which I thought would be useful if any of them forget some material to work with for lessons or even to use the computers together at some point.

Unfortunately I didn’t get to observe all of the children on Tuesday but just before their lunch, Millie arranged for me to meet them and briefly explain the project as well as myself. It was really great when she told them outside the classroom that they had been chosen, they cheered and seemed really excited! After introducing everything bit by bit, Millie asked them if they knew what identity was. Their responses were not what I expected at all! The first student suggested it was about discovering fingerprints, another said that it was like a mystery and someone else added it was about DNA. I can’t wait to ask them again and see if they come up with some more responses!

I came in on Wednesday as well to try and observe the other children who I hadn’t been able to on Tuesday. One of the children who I had been told was an introvert and quite mothered, was very bold. She immediately asked what I was doing in again and continued to keep an eye on me all morning as she happened to be in both lessons I observed getting herself told off twice because she wasn’t paying attention to her book. The student I was told had anger issues, who I should keep my eye on the most was actually very well behaved all day. I was also told that he had low self worth and if he didn’t think he could do something then he wouldn’t even try. I saw a little bit of this behavior in the sense that when he was asked to continue writing his diary entry from yesterday he wanted to redo the whole thing because he had made some mistakes. I added to my notes that it would be a good idea to keep things fast paced and change things around by swapping places, stop and jump up and down, finger exercises that my old teacher made us do when he felt we weren’t concentrating?

For the rest of the week I continued lesson planning, re-writing my notes so there was more structure with aims and materials or equipment that I would require for the lessons. I also read ID An international survey on the notion of identity in contemporary art although this was dated 1996 it was still a very interesting read and I shall research some of the artists further next week.

As I heard back from Millie to say that I could come in Tuesday 21st I spent Monday preparing a presentation about myself as well as a brief overview of the project for the children. After being at university for the last 3 years and prior to that being in college/school, I felt suddenly out of my comfort zone making a presentation for children and not something official that would be graded. I made a couple of tries to start making slides but both times I knew they were just too formal. I had a chat with Dave who showed me some examples of presentations he had done for children. I realised what was missing from my presentation was myself! I had been trying to make it formal with just the information instead of introducing them to me, when talking to Dave about how sensitive and personal my project is going to be, he emphasised that I need to be open with them so they feel comfortable to do the same with me. After this I found myself a lot more relaxed and created a presentation I am much happier with!

On Tuesday it turned out I didn’t need to prepare anything for seeing the children, we were just going to have a 10 minute chat about it after I spent the morning observing them. I met with Millie before school started, she gave me a bit of background on the children that she knew about, explaining why they had been chosen for the project. I then spent a few hours in different classes observing a few of the children and making notes on how they behaved. The main aspect I picked up on with this group was that one of the children was very low ability; he struggled with his reading and writing as well as following the teacher in general throughout the lesson. I noticed that all of the teachers gave the children time limits for all of the tasks they were given as well as using countdowns to get them all to be quiet and pay attention. They have access to about 8 computers as well, which I thought would be useful if any of them forget some material to work with for lessons or even to use the computers together at some point.

Unfortunately I didn’t get to observe all of the children on Tuesday but just before their lunch, Millie arranged for me to meet them and briefly explain the project as well as myself. It was really great when she told them outside the classroom that they had been chosen, they cheered and seemed really excited! After introducing everything bit by bit, Millie asked them if they knew what identity was. Their responses were not what I expected at all! The first student suggested it was about discovering fingerprints, another said that it was like a mystery and someone else added it was about DNA. I can’t wait to ask them again and see if they come up with some more responses!

I came in on Wednesday as well to try and observe the other children who I hadn’t been able to on Tuesday. One of the children who I had been told was an introvert and quite mothered, was very bold. She immediately asked what I was doing in again and continued to keep an eye on me all morning as she happened to be in both lessons I observed getting herself told off twice because she wasn’t paying attention to her book. The student I was told had anger issues, who I should keep my eye on the most was actually very well behaved all day. I was also told that he had low self worth and if he didn’t think he could do something then he wouldn’t even try. I saw a little bit of this behavior in the sense that when he was asked to continue writing his diary entry from yesterday he wanted to redo the whole thing because he had made some mistakes. I added to my notes that it would be a good idea to keep things fast paced and change things around by swapping places, stop and jump up and down, finger exercises that my old teacher made us do when he felt we weren’t concentrating?

For the rest of the week I continued lesson planning, re-writing my notes so there was more structure with aims and materials or equipment that I would require for the lessons. I also read ID An international survey on the notion of identity in contemporary art although this was dated 1996 it was still a very interesting read and I shall research some of the artists further next week.

As I heard back from Millie to say that I could come in Tuesday 21st I spent Monday preparing a presentation about myself as well as a brief overview of the project for the children. After being at university for the last 3 years and prior to that being in college/school, I felt suddenly out of my comfort zone making a presentation for children and not something official that would be graded. I made a couple of tries to start making slides but both times I knew they were just too formal. I had a chat with Dave who showed me some examples of presentations he had done for children. I realised what was missing from my presentation was myself! I had been trying to make it formal with just the information instead of introducing them to me, when talking to Dave about how sensitive and personal my project is going to be, he emphasised that I need to be open with them so they feel comfortable to do the same with me. After this I found myself a lot more relaxed and created a presentation I am much happier with.

On Tuesday it turned out I didn’t need to prepare anything for seeing the children, we were just going to have a 10 minute chat about it after I spent the morning observing them. I met with Millie before school started, she gave me a bit of background on the children that she knew about, explaining why they had been chosen for the project. I then spent a few hours in different classes observing a few of the children and making notes on how they behaved. The main aspect I picked up on with this group was that one of the children was very low ability; he struggled with his reading and writing as well as following the teacher in general throughout the lesson. I noticed that all of the teachers gave the children time limits for all of the tasks they were given as well as using countdowns to get them all to be quiet and pay attention. They have access to about 8 computers as well, which I thought would be useful if any of them forget some material to work with for lessons or even to use the computers together at some point.

Unfortunately I didn’t get to observe all of the children on Tuesday but just before their lunch, Millie arranged for me to meet them and briefly explain the project as well as myself. It was really great when she told them outside the classroom that they had been chosen, they cheered and seemed really excited! After introducing everything bit by bit, Millie asked them if they knew what identity was. Their responses were not what I expected at all! The first student suggested it was about discovering fingerprints, another said that it was like a mystery and someone else added it was about DNA. I can’t wait to ask them again and see if they come up with some more responses!

I came in on Wednesday as well to try and observe the other children who I hadn’t been able to on Tuesday. One of the children who I had been told was an introvert and quite mothered, was very bold. She immediately asked what I was doing in again and continued to keep an eye on me all morning as she happened to be in both lessons I observed getting herself told off twice because she wasn’t paying attention to her book. The student I was told had anger issues, who I should keep my eye on the most was actually very well behaved all day. I was also told that he had low self worth and if he didn’t think he could do something then he wouldn’t even try. I saw a little bit of this behavior in the sense that when he was asked to continue writing his diary entry from yesterday he wanted to redo the whole thing because he had made some mistakes. I added to my notes that it would be a good idea to keep things fast paced and change things around by swapping places, stop and jump up and down, finger exercises that my old teacher made us do when he felt we weren’t concentrating?

For the rest of the week I continued lesson planning, re-writing my notes so there was more structure with aims and materials or equipment that I would require for the lessons. I also read ID An international survey on the notion of identity in contemporary art although this was dated 1996 it was still a very interesting read and I shall research some of the artists further next week.

Following last weeks exciting meeting at Portway, I have been going through my ideas and trying to build them together to create lesson plans for the 5 weeks with the children. I know that until I meet the children and have a better understanding of them I won’t be able to finalise any of these plans but for now I have been working on a skeleton outline for these lessons. For example:

Cornell box: Show- Example of a box representing me, discuss the different elements. Ask the class what kind of things they would put in their box.

Follow up- Ask them to bring in their own images/ texts of things they love so they can create a cornell box in the class. Incase a student forgets to bring stuff, take notes of what the class discuss and bring in extra bits and bobs for them to work with- laptop and printer to access internet and print bits out?

Make- Help the students create their boxes, chat with them about why they have chosen specific things for their boxes, if possible record these conversations.

Discussion and collaboration: Show each other their boxes and discuss what links there are between the boxes, how they found the exercise and what they think of their boxes.

I have also been working on more of my own work, I finished editing all the interviews that I could and began experimenting with new ways of displaying it.

This is my most recent idea, looking at displaying 4 films on one screen or projection, depending on the quality of the image. With this method I could display the stories accompanying the films around the room, so the audience can look at the film and find the text around the room at their own pace. While the studio space downstairs is free I intend to experiment both projecting and having one on a television, spacing the text around the room at ‘random.’

The highlight of this week was having an associates meeting in Winchester, as having a residency at the studio’s also includes being part of Chapel Arts Associate Artists; many of whom I already know and it was great to meet up. We discussed upcoming projects, upcoming group exhibition opportunities and the discussing the idea of dissent. This was decided as a theme of discussion after finding out the converted chapel that the studios are in, was originally a chapel of dissent. It was suggested we have a think about what dissent means to us before the meeting, with Lydia (one of the associate artists) putting our a message ‘As artists, no matter how varied our practices, I think this applies to us as we all question and challenge the norms.’ This is what I focused my idea of dissent on. In my work I try to give people a place to voice their opinions, thoughts or feelings without being judged in the process. I want to give people a place to talk about what they want to talk about, to say that x,y or z is still upsetting them, or x,y or z is making them really happy either way. I’m not sure if this is really a dissident act, but I try to question the norms of what we should be talking about. Everyone had something different to say about dissent, not just about politics, we had a very interesting discussion about experiences as well as artworks.

This week ended with my first meeting at Portway Junior School, with the head teacher, Tim Deery and the head of arts, Millie Southway, so I spent the week preparing for this by creating some hand outs to take with me. The first outlined my practice and why I applied for/ am doing this residency, the second was a brief explanation of my proposal and finishing with more in depth ideas for lessons.

When showing David my ‘first draft’ of these, we had a great discussion about the amount of art terminology to use when talking with different people, for example when handing in an artist statement for a proposal you need to show the right level of knowledge but when explaining your ideas to the public the language used needs to be adjusted. I was pleased that he felt I had achieved a good balance of terminology, which made me feel less nervous about the meeting. I also made sure that, where possible, I included images of my ideas and artists that I was referencing, this was partly out of habit from presentations at university but also to help me at the meeting.

Throughout the week, I read the book I have on loan from the library, Insistent Voices, but although a thought provoking read, it didn’t help me with writing up my ideas for more projects with the children. I did however pluck out two quotes that interested me about identity, which I plan on researching further.

P3 …each of us is a biography, a story. Each of us is a singular narrative, which is constructed, continually, unconsciously, by, though, and in us – through our perceptions, our feelings, our thoughts, our actions, and not least our discourse, our spoken narratives. Biologically, physiologically, we are not so different from each other; historically, as narratives, we are each of us unique. To be ourselves we must have ourselves – possess, if needs be re-possess, our life stories. We must ‘recollect’ ourselves, recollect the inner drama, the narrative of ourselves.

Sacks 1985 quoted in Narrative and Psychotherapy (1997)

P12 ‘Personal identity is sought, and found, through having a past, experiencing a sense of belonging; being loved and valued; being seen as and treated as an adult; and valuing oneself. Social identity is sought through adopting social roles, achieving a valued status, and acquiring useful skills or accomplishments.’

McLeod 1997 p.39 and Atkinson Know me as I am 

As well as preparing for the meeting, I revisited a piece from my final year show In Memory Of… which I plan on changing, so it can be exhibited more easily, that is without spending just short of £400 on screens from amazon that I ended up sending back because they were so temperamental! It was good for me to start editing again as I don’t want to forget the skills I learnt, I have 5 more clips to edit next week all of varying length. Also, I received a message from a friend, Peter Driver, who I helped by filming and editing A March for Optimism which he did for his final major project, letting me know that he is submitting this to the Winchester Short Film Festival!

Finally the meeting, which I am very pleased to say went extremely well! I don’t know why I was so nervous, but David came with me, which helped a lot as he introduced us, about the studio and a little bit about the EPR where I started talking. I am so glad I made notes to bring with me, they helped guide what I was talking about, hopefully without me babbling so much! After talking about some of my proposals for workshops/lessons, Tim kindly said ‘what a lot of ideas you have!’ which opened up the discussion nicely. Millie was great, she knew about a couple of artists I mentioned and also asked if I knew about Humans of New York, a project that has exploded with interest, creating a number one selling book! (I definitely did know about it and follow his tumblr for updates!) But something I didn’t know about, was that people’s wishes are printed onto confetti to be scattered all over Times Square for New Years, a project that the children have got involved with by choosing 5 wishes to send in, which I thought was great! After this discussion, I felt a lot more relaxed and so excited to work with such great staff in this school!

From my explaining about my key interest in helping people and my plans for the future, Millie suggested it would be really good if I could work with a smaller group of the more vulnerable children in the school, where I could make a much bigger impact on the children’s experience by being able to work with them a lot more directly and personally. Tim also mentioned that in February they have an art week, which could give me the opportunity to work with the children in bigger groups too! Their theme this year is around the world, something that I can really work with along the theme of identity in different cultures! So far we are thinking that afternoons will be preferable, working with around 8-10 children starting with the year 6’s for 5 weeks at the beginning of November, moving onto the same project but with year 5’s in the New Year.

So for the next week I will be adjusting my ideas to look at this time frame, looking to plan specific lessons/ workshops and gathering material together for these lessons as well as thinking about how I can keep track for the arts award part of the project. Tim and Millie will be thinking about which children could benefit the most from this experience so that the week after next I can visit the school and get to know some of then from a distance as well as meet some of the other teachers. I am so excited for the next few weeks, where things are really going to start getting busy!