The artwork starts to pull together. We spend a morning with the children decoupaging the cabinet with old books, the moth prints and an opportunity to draw where they can find a dry spot on the cabinet. Continue reading
Dear Class,
You are invited to visit the Curious Cabinet. The cabinet has been delivered to your school for your inspection, deliberation, fascination and to make you curious too.
Go and examine the weird and wonderful objects within, consider the things that might live there, look for ways in, look for ways out, look for any magic you might be the only one to see. Use your wildest imagination.
Then, shut your eyes and invent what you would like to be there…
Write to me, describing what you are thinking of…
Is it a creature? Is it a place? Is it an adventure?
Please tell me what only YOU know about what there may be in my cabinet.
Roll up your paper, tie it carefully, and deliver it to the cabinet to inspire someone else another day.
With my thanks for your help,
The Keeper of the Cabinet Continue reading
Working with theatre maker Dominic Biddle
Into the Somewhere started out as a research project investigating innovative ways to bring together performance and visual art. It also looked to make an art encounter relevant to the thoughts and concerns of primary school children. Continue reading
The tent is transformed into a library where old stories are revisited; new stories begin and a large collection of broken and unwanted books become the materials and inspiration for the making of individual artwork. Continue reading
This is a Halloween commission for Center Parcs, Elveden. These ghostly figures can be glimpsed flitting through the woodland near the arrivals lodge.
Wetheringsett School invited us to work with the whole school as part of their eco week. They were keen to create a shared large piece of art to be exhibited in the school. Before the project we agreed that the theme would be about an imaginary plant that might grow from discarded plastic bottles as they start to decompose.
The children collected sacks of plastic bottles and more Christmas sweet wrappers than we’ve ever seen gathered together in one place before, there’s something very beautiful and tactile about them en masse.
After an assembly introducing the theme the children took part in three activities. We worked with them exploring ways to transform the plastic materials into component parts of a large plant installation for the library area. The children discovered some ways of transforming the plastic bottles that we hadn’t seen used before.
Alongside this we asked the teachers to set up a large scale shared drawing allowing the children to imagine plants that might grow from the plastics. In another activity they put themselves in the position of scientists classifying the newly discovered plant and determining it’s growing needs and habits linking back into growth as a curriculum topic.
Here are a few photos of the artwork assembled in the library;
Over the last four weeks we have been working towards our autumn feast installation at art club. We wanted to create an artwork that made us celebrate the fruit and vegetables available in the garden and countryside at this time of year and how they could be imaginatively prepared.
The children, very beautifully, laid out their collaged plates, handmade felt, recipe cards and very imaginative food sculptures on their hand painted tablecloth. Luckily we also had a batch of pear and almond cakes to share with our exhibition visitors.
During November we worked with children from Elveden Primary, Norwich Road Primary and USAF Mildenhall to make an installation for the Electric Forest event at High Lodge in Thetford Forest. The children collected used plastic bottles and using cutting and threading techniques transformed these into enormous imagined plants. The plant was named the Junklecreeper and a story emerged about a new invasive species that grew out of the plastic bottles thrown into a pit in the forest.
After we installed the artwork Phil Supple and his team designed lighting and and a soundscape for the experience. Thousands of visitors visited Electric Forest through December to enjoying the stunning light installations and the opportunity to be out in the forest after dark.
