Picturing Ourselves

An exhibition of photography and writing made by children from St Mary Kilburn and St Eugene De Mazenod primary schools exploring the built environment in thier communities. The exhibition is on show at the British Musuem, Clore Education Centre, until 1st November. Entry is free. Please contact me if you need further details sophie.bull@camden.gov.uk

The British Museum and Jack Taylor School

We have been busy working in partnership with

the British Museum to run a project with Jack Taylor School. We have worked closely with a key stage two class and their teacher from a special school in the Swiss Cottage area of Camden.

The project explored children’s sensory responses to new experiences in the museum, the colour of the museum was gold, the smell was sandal wood, the feel was marble and the sound was folk music! The children benefited from repeated visits to the museum with follow up sessions run back in the classroom. The children learnt a song with makaton signs, enjoyed dancing to the folk music and exploring the museum in different ways. The follow up sessions were often messy and lots of fun, involving glue and glitter and different materials to create mood boards after each visit to the museum.

The children will have their worked celebrated at an Engaging Places event in July, which launches an exhibition of the work in Greenwich and then at Wolverhampton Art gallery.

Buildings and Patterns Key Stage 1

Some comments from Year 2 children who did the Buildings and Patterns after-school club before Christmas:

‘My favourite was when we used play dough and it was fun too. I liked it because we could bounce the play dough and stick it on things on our building.’

‘I liked making my model because it was fun.’ Rizwaan

I liked it when we went to the Foundling Museum because we had to look at paintings to draw. I also liked it when we made our houses out of materials.’ Safar

‘I enjoyed building my buildings. I liked it because I like making my own buildings. I made an electricity fire maker.’ Zahin

‘I liked to make some stuff out of materials. I liked making some nice buildings and castles out of play dough.’ Kevin

‘My favourite was when we used play-dough and it was fun too. I liked it.’ Pamela

‘I enjoyed when I made a castle. My building was of card and I liked the building.’ Shakeel

‘I enjoyed building models with materials like play dough and sticks.’ Aaron

‘I like the building because it was fabulous. I liked it when we were in the museum drawing and it was fun.’ Nabil

Buildings and People

Some comments from the Year 12 students from the La Swap sixth form on the Buildings and People project with Central St Martins MA students:

“I’m glad we did our exhibition and I got it completed in a short space of time.”

“I enjoyed it, and was able to experience with various methods of developing photos in the darkroom.”

“Well there were lots of things that I enjoyed. However, there wasn’t really a lot of time to do the work so there was no chance to improve.”

“I think we could have seen more of the Central St Martins students and they could have given us more of their ideas.”

“We could have had a larger variety of options, like using props or choosing our own places to capture.”

“I really enjoyed it. Pleased with my shots and how my work displayed.”

Long time no blog

It's been a long time since the last post. The second half of the October half-term was a very busy one for the project. Here's a quick update:

The Buildings and Patterns after-school club at St George the Martyr School with Year 2 went really well. The pupils created some amazing models of their fantasy buildings and the teacher is now going to follow-up in school with a buildings unit in art and design.

The Buildings and Spaces project got started with St Michael's School in Camden Town. Year 4 have researched Victorian gardens, visited Harrington Square gardens and produced their final design for the central circular bed. The plants are being ordered. This term Year 4 will learn how to grow plants from scratch and we hope to use some of their plants in the final design.

The Buildings and People and Forensic Architecture Projects were delivered by Central St Martins MA Design for Narrative Environments students to La Swap and South Camden Community School students at the British Museum, Foundling Museum and Hunterian Museum. The school students' artworks were exhibited at Central St Martins Innovation Centre and several pieces were sold!