Here are some lovely pictures taken of an installation built with young people from Crewe YMCA at the Avents Factory, Axis Centre, MMU Crewe last Saturday. Our installation responded to the question ‘What is Home?’ and took a couple of days’ hard work to fill a large drama studio space at the Axis Centre.

The project aimed to invite people to participate in a workshop led by Crewe YMCA, asking participants to think about different aspects of ‘home’ and what it means to them.

Groups of up to 20 participants entered the workshop space and after the last workshop, we had just under two hours to turn the space into an installation complete with a film of the day by Mark Haig. The installation featured a ‘shadow wall’ entrance into our space, a comfy living room area complete with sound recordings, smells and people’s memories, a ‘dream couch’ area filled with origami, a candle-lit washing line with life tips and advice, a large painting of people’s ideas about where they see their future home, and a life-size shelter in which people had answered the question ‘what is home?’

Despite the long days and sleepless nights thinking about what I needed to do and waking up early to write lists, I really enjoyed working on the project. I think we really managed to pull the installation together through good ideas and team work, even though we had very little time to get things done!

Here’s a big, homely thank you to the young people, Chad Healey and Rachel Miller at Crewe YMCA for all their great ideas and hard work. Thanks also to Mark Haig for creating the film and making and manning a Punch & Judy set last minute! Also thanks to the technicians for helping us sort out the space and finally many thanks to Paul Hine for inviting me to be part of his Avents Factory.

Links:

http://www.theaventsfactory.org/index.html

http://www.creweymca.com/

http://www.axisartscentre.org.uk/home/

http://www.myspace.com/video/mark/mark-haig-applied-visual-artists-showreel/17902148

After 2 weeks of ‘Colour Pop’ workshops (see previous post), colourful prints were stripped off the studio walls and replaced with clean layers of black & white paper for Mini Art Club – how different it looked!

Families followed a trail up to Roger Ballen’s beautifully rich black & white square-formatted photographs in the current ‘Shadow Land’ exhibition at Manchester Art Gallery. Despite the slightly dark, adult-themed nature of Roger Ballen’s work, families with young children responded well to his photographs – making simple connections with textures, lines and imagery in photos in certain areas of the exhibition. Children particularly loved feeling feathers, twigs, drawing with wire and finding animals hidden in the photographs as well as in toy form on the gallery floor.

Downstairs, two studios were set up to recreate the rich aesthetic of Roger Ballen’s photos as children were invited to explore textures of key materials and, also, shadow and light on a large scale.

Links:

http://www.manchestergalleries.org/whats-on/exhibitions/index.php?itemID=87

http://www.rogerballen.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Uee_mcxvrw

Here are some lovely pictures from half-term family workshops at Manchester Art Gallery this week and last!

The workshops introduced the concept of complementary or ‘best friend’ colours in paintings in the Modern & Contemporary Gallery, taking inspiration from John Hoyland’s ’14.6.64′ (1964). Families looked for sets of best friend colours in paintings and were asked to think about how the colours made them feel. Later, downstairs in the studios, families could print using interesting objects and /or make abstract screen prints choosing combinations of complementary colours. Two studio activities were available for families with children aged 0-5 years and 6+ years.

As the two weeks progressed the studio walls became filled with a collection of pop colours!

The pictures and vids show some of the activities the teachers participated in, both in the Chen Man exhibition and in the Jasmine Suite Studio downstairs at the Chinese Arts Centre.

The event was organised by the Prince’s Foundation for Children and the Arts, as part of their Start Programme.

Please click on the link here to see more:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/michikofujii/sets/72157629271461558/

Working with artist and textile designer Hazel Hewitt, we developed and delivered a teacher’s ‘toolbox’ training event as part of the ‘Catalyst’ teacher training programme for the Prince’s Foundation for Children and the Arts. The training day took place at the Chinese Arts Centre, Manchester and was specifically aimed at encouraging Key Stage 2 teachers to try out different Visual Arts and Drama activities in the classroom. It also aimed to demonstrate ways in which teachers could work with contemporary art in galleries and visit spaces like the Chinese Arts Centre, as an additional site of learning.

For the first part of our session, Hazel and I asked the teachers to spend time in the current Chen Man contemporary photography exhibition. We initiated various activities to get teachers looking at the artwork and engaging with it, such as word games, drawing games, etc. We also demonstrated ways the teachers could use the work of Chen Man as the starting point for discussion and generating ideas, before carrying out practical work.

Hazel and I both initially found Chen Man’s work quite challenging to respond to. However, as we and also the teachers realised, the more time we spent looking at her photographs, the more intriguing and multi-layered they revealed themselves to be. Contrasting themes began to emerge as we spent more time viewing the work from different perspectives and discussing this with different people. By the end of this part of the session, the teachers felt more prepared to begin the practical activities, in which we challenged them to create paper costumes for each other, and also asked them to explore a variety of layering techniques.

The main focus of the workshop had been to allow teachers the opportunity to explore different materials and processes and, also, think about how they could incorporate some of these techniques or ideas, either in their own practice or in the classroom. This was complemented by a drama workshop delivered by Sarah Clough from Griffin Theatre Arts in the afternoon.

We asked the teachers to play a surrealist story game with each other as a way of interpreting Chen Man’s work (below). They had to think about who was in each artwork, the landscape and the mood or personality of the model in the photo, passing their paper on to somebody else each time. Please also scroll down to read their feedback in relation to the workshop.

‘Consequence’ Game Responses to Chen Man’s work:

“Jade – Scottish Highlands – Peaceful and Confident”

“A teenage girl called Clementine – In the Mountains in a faraway land – Happy, Free”

“Jewel, the Ice Princess – Ice Palace of  Snow Queen – Powerful”

“Mi ice – Iceland, Mountains, ice, water, quiet, deserted – Bitter and in need of revenge”

“Sparkle – Beneath the surface of a frozen lake – Lost and yearning! Soulful”

“Hena: Western Girl – Stepping through a round window of a traditional house in the mountains – Determined, powerful, controlling, ready to take over”

 ”A psychic, omnipotent goddess – Mini sci-fi world – Feeling? Empowered”

Teacher’s comments and feedback about the workshop:

“Inspirational, challenging, thought-provoking”

I liked…

“The traffic light system for generating ideas and conversation related to art”

“The northern twist”

“Good to have got to do different activities. Very calming.”

I learnt…

“More about digital art”

“Reminded to ‘see’ rather than just ‘look’”

“I learned and gained more understanding of layering”

I was surprised that…

“I both liked and disliked the images – but the exercises made me look again”

“I was surprised that the Chinese Arts Centre had so much contemporary art”

“My picture became so sentimental”

‘I could see so much in Chen Man’s work’ 

“How calming it was”

I would change / do differently..

“Incorporate art through projection / OHP etc.”

“Rely less on language. Use more visual skills.”

“I will take more risks”

I most enjoyed…

“Calm – loved doing creative activities and being in an art space”

“Creating a piece in response to the gallery”

“Exploring the images in the gallery”

“I enjoyed the hands-on activities”

“I enjoyed the visual impact of the exhibition”

“Making art”

N.B. Keep an eye out for video clip uploads soon! 

Links:

http://www.childrenandarts.org.uk/our-projects/catalyst-teacher-training/

http://twitter.com/#!/childrenandarts/status/180675823437742081/photo/1

http://www.chinese-arts-centre.org/

http://blog.chinese-arts-centre.org/

http://www.hazelhewitt.com/Home.html

http://www.griffintheatrearts.com/

As mentioned a few weeks ago, here’s a lovely vimeo vid by Jessica Wild, which captures the ‘Imagine’ session we led together at Manchester Art Gallery.

Inspired by Max Ernst’s ‘chance’ frottage collage ‘Petrified City’, families were invited to create random sound compositions by collaging stickers and other materials onto old vinyl records which were then played on a turntable. In addition, families also enjoyed cutting up album covers and made interesting, surreal collages. One little girl even decided to put stickers over all the men’s heads on the album cover of Fame, leaving only the women’s heads visible!

To see and hear the ‘chance compositions’, click on the link: https://vimeo.com/37909145

Also, for some rather low quality vid clips go to: http://www.flickr.com/photos/michikofujii/sets/72157629162585530/

It was another busy weekend and, alas, there was no time for any outdoor adventures whilst the sun was out. Fortunately, Sir David Chipperfield had the insight to position the studios so that the windows faced the path of the afternoon sun. The studios were filled with light and the work was fully illuminated!

The Hepworth Wakefield: http://www.hepworthwakefield.org/

Just a quick one…. am loading up some pictures taken from half-term ‘Surprise, Surprise’ workshops this week, taken at Manchester Art Gallery.

We responded to Max Ernst’s ‘Petrified City’ and asked families to play surrealist word games in front of the painting in the gallery. We also asked them to try out Ernst’s frottage (rubbing) technique before creating a surrealist ‘chance’ composition in the studios…

Families’ interpretations of the ‘Petrified City’ were fascinating! Here are some of their surreal, poetic responses:

It’s a ritz cracker

Like a piano

Sad

It’s a full fat piece of cheese for the people playing multiple chess games underneath 

It’s a cloud falling onto a dolls’ house

It feels smooth

People watching a football match

I like this picture because it looks like a town with a sunset in Bedouin Land! Warm!

The moon revealed happy thoughts from the castle as it glistened in the sky

The hill was filled with petrifying memories as the destruction of the moon howled

Junk and horrible stories clattered together as they steadily expressed hopes that never came true 

The warm moon is lighting up the trains and the city

The icy sun makes the world dark in the country

The sun warms my heart in this warm picture

The water freezes in my brain

The fire burns in my eye

The bright moon shone over the fast trains that were passing underneath

The dull sun lacked light underneath the slow trains that were stopping overhead

The glaring moon bellowed out its glorious light at the speeding trains that were shooting past below

To see Max Ernst talk about the frottage technique, click on the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHdU4JfY-bU

More work (Facebook): http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150825399644128.510733.68496394127&type=1

It’s that time of the month again and I’ve had a great weekend working at Manchester Art Gallery with artist and film-maker Jessica Wild on our joint venture – interpreting surrealist artwork through sound, composition and montages!

Taking Max Ernst’s ‘Petrified City’ and other surrealist artworks in the permanent collection as the starting point, we invited families to embrace random collage-making and chance… on vinyl. Families were invited to create their own collage compositions on records which would, in turn, interfere with the way the stylus moved around the groove. Families could play the records to discover how their colourful collages created unique ‘chance’ sound compositions.

Families were also invited to create weird and wonderful photo-montages using the record covers to cut ‘n’ paste . Check out some of the cool and crazy artwork (above).

The message here is embrace the random and let your imagination wander, whilst developing a unique soundtrack for the artworks in the Modern & Contemporary gallery!

Vid clip uploads coming soon….

One of my workshops next month will tackle the theme of loops, lines and lace, so I decided to take a train ride to Birmingham to catch the ‘Lost in Lace’ exhibition at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery, before it finishes next Sunday 19th.  The range of interpretations to the theme of lace from the 20 contemporary artists featured in the exhibition is impressive, and the level of concept, skill, scale and attention to detail keeps the average visitor engrossed for much longer than anticipated.

Quite a few of the artworks respond specifically to the exhibition space within the Gas Hall at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery, as threads, panels and lacy forms literally slice through space, forming new perspectives, delineations and boundaries for the visitor to walk around and peer through. Responses range from the microcosm of a thread of lace – ‘Black Lace’, a video-sound installation by Kathleen Rogers; to the dark, otherworldly installation ‘After the Dream’ by Chiharu Shiota, featuring a row of white dresses floating in an intricate, webbed confusion of hand-woven threads (complete with a surveillance camera’s view which demonstrates how the space was painstakingly constructed).

The exhibition space itself is curated in such a way that the visitor can choose their own route around the exhibition, almost as if they too are weaving their own lacy path. There is much to see and walk around and plenty of to-ing and fro-ing, so it would be great if this could have actually been recorded and mapped out in some way!

To travel down by train across icy/snowy landscapes and find myself ‘Lost in Lace’ for nearly two hours was a great visual distraction and inspiration. My fingers were left twitching for needle, thread and paper to play with, pencils to scribble with and my head buzzing with ideas and possible responses. A trip to this exhibition is highly recommended and a pre-conceived idea of lace will be ripped apart and intricately re-threaded.

http://lostinlace.org.uk/

http://www.craftscouncil.org.uk/collection-and-exhibitions/exhibitions/lost-in-lace/

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Crafts-Council-UK/136690769684701