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Aberporth
Primary | Ysgol Saron | Ysgol
Llangadog | Ysgol Llangynfelyn My Square
Mile 2006 - Places and Spaces
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Artist's Statement Thoughts
on My Square Mile In thinking about the world built environment I found myself wondering how I might extend vision to other possible ways of creating it. My sense was that if our experience is limited, either by age or circumstances, how can we know if there are other ways of creating environments other than the one that we encounter every day? With this question as my starting point I invited children in both schools to consider their own needs and what they might want from a man made space. In the two schools work has developed along different lines as result of the locale and ages of the children. I bring a particular personal interest to this project which arises from curiosity about the physical nature of the world and my response to it through art making. Perhaps because of this interest I have become conscious of the way that physical knowing informs image making. When children handle materials and tools the action brings different knowledge to their two dimensional image making. The experience of the world and then the image making are in a constant dialogue. Alongside of this is the seductiveness of materials, the logic of ‘form follows function’ is not relevant if we want to try out a new material! Through working with unfamiliar materials new forms and solutions can arise provided the work is honoured as research rather than seen as making an end product. Research is enabled to give birth to invention. I have been acutely aware throughout the project that we are all subject to the power of our social conditioning, we want to please. I have seen how children will attempt to make work to satisfy me. As an artist this creates an overwhelming and fatal trap, ever present and stifling creativity. In a world driven by economic imperatives it is depressingly inevitable that only a few individuals will ever get the chance to bring about innovative changes to social spaces. It takes courage to break out of conventional patterns of behaviour and to embrace new ways of doing things. In the context of this project my aim was to invite the children to explore both their internal and external relations to the world and to provide them with materials through which they might articulate their own imaginative suggestions and personal visions for the built environment.
Work plan proposal for My Square Mile: St Joesphs Cathedral School
What
is the nature of the space that I inhabit? : What shape is it? What
size? How is orientated? What am I looking at? Why? What atmosphere
do I want in my space (active or calm?) How
does it relate to the rest of the world around me? : How do I enter
and leave this space? Where is it in relation to any resources I might
need both human and physical? How
does my space relate to my neighbour’s spaces? What is the impact
of sharing walls, open space, resources? This is a very personal and ideal standard against which to then go out and explore the world around the school.
Taking sketchbooks (and cameras?) explore the school and its environment. A series of 5 minute drawings each stopping point determined by a different member of the group exploring the way that things connect in the built environment. 3. Mapping spaces How did I get here? A drawing from memory between waking and now. Drawing with charcoal on long paper rolls. With Gil: Where are we in our immediate locale? Thinking about the school and its environment and about the structure of the school, the building types around us. Individually drawing on a foam block create the buildings around us. Creating a three dimensional map with large foam blocks on a 4x6m ‘building plot’ Drawing the map as we see it.
Walk in a figure of eight out of the front door turn right, come in at the upper level , down through the school, out the front door, turn left and round in at the top again. Have we learnt anything about the topography of the school? Use sketchbooks, cameras, graphite Using wire ‘draw’ our own house and then locate in on a ‘street’. Finally draw our wire house in the way we made it, with a continuous line. 5. Using all our knowledge Look
at building types we might never have seen and then with all our knowledge,
plus some extra materials (clay and flexible twiggy wood as well as
all the materials we have used so far) make our fantasy building as
a model.
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Teacher's Statement My Square
Mile - Places and Spaces 2006
The project has broadened the children’s range of skills, particularly in drawing and 3D modelling. The children have been introduced to new drawing materials, including; graphite; compressed charcoal; raw charcoal; and (briefly) found materials, for instance, iron ore. Their use of pastel and standard charcoal was also broadened and extended. They have also been introduced to new approaches to drawing, including; drawing sounds; drawing with eyes closed; drawing from an unusual orientation (lying on backs and even hanging upside down from play ground apparatus); and drawing on foam. Their skills in 3D modelling have been developed, particularly through their own problem solving. They have considered ways of joining materials to the room and furniture around them; considered ways of drawing in three dimensions (using wire) and how to join the various lines; and considered the properties of clay and how to support it across wide gaps. They have developed their ability to select materials (an opportunity less often available in mainstream school) and investigated a wide range of papers, strings, cards, and mark making tools. Some children even created their own mark-making medium by spreading clay evenly onto card and scratching into it with pencils, or colouring using pastels. They have practised the skill of evaluating their own and other’s work, standing back each day to consider whether they achieved their desired aims. They questioned themselves by comparing their planning and completed project, their selection of materials, and their techniques. They considered other people’s work and identified why they liked it or disliked it. Attitudes shown by the Children The children showed complete commitment to the task presented to them. Often new modes of working were introduced, and most children eagerly had a go. A few were more reticent, but made good progress with encouragement. There were a few ‘magical’ occasions where children spontaneously responded to their environment corporately and sensitively. On other occasions individuals demonstrated their unique thoughts and responses by working in surprising (appropriate) ways. The children showed impressive stamina, maintaining their concentration (and, in some cases, dealing constructively with frustration) for the whole day on almost every project day. When the children returned from lunchtime there was often a marked increase in their productivity and creativity following the time spent considering the new challenges of the morning. This was especially noticeable on the final day when the morning consisted of presentation of dramatically different buildings and a relatively new material (modelling clay). During the morning the children worked on very conventional buildings like those in our immediate locale, and chose to work in clay, despite this not really lending itself to the shapes and constructions they were aiming for. After lunch, the children were much more willing to develop new shapes of buildings and adapt their designs to the nature of the modelling material. In reality, they created buildings that were suited to the material, rather than designing their ideal building and then selecting the most suitable material (oh, the lure of clay!). Certain individuals also showed markedly different attitudes to those usually demonstrated in school. The flexibility of a smaller group and a wide choice of working style allowed children to let their imaginations and creativity flow and so experienced less of the frustration normally encountered in the constraints of the classroom. The project sought to respond to the direction the children indicated in their questions and working, another freedom rarely encountered in the classroom, but one which has helped the children to stay focused. The pattern of choice as regards collaborative / individual work was also surprising at times. Age differences did not ever seem to be a barrier during the project days, with children happily helping each other, and accepting help, regardless of the age of the other child. On the first few days, existing friendships tended to determine who would work with whom, but as the project moved on this was less noticeable, and children became freer in their offering of collaboration or help. Often children who had encountered difficulty in achieving their intended purpose would surmount the challenge by joining someone else who demonstrated the needed proficiency, sometimes returning to their own projects, but often finding that they were engaged by the other child’s work and choosing to continue to work together. Evalution of the Work The children’s questions and interests from the previous project day largely determined the subject matter for each following project day. For instance, during the day in which we constructed a model of our immediate locale, we discovered that the children only had awareness of the buildings they use. Especially notable was a ‘hole’ that developed in our model. The children could not think what was missing. It turned out that we were missing a derelict church which almost adjoins the school and which almost every child sees everyday, but which none of them were aware. The following project day was planned to begin with a walk around the school’s boundaries (delayed until the afternoon due to rain) so that the children could look specifically at the buildings around us. Gill also provided us with building plans of the area so that we could look at the relative size of the buildings and identify their uses. |
