Having already worked with the primary schools, I was looking forward to meeting the pupils in Year 7 and 8 from Watling Academy in Whitehouse, Milton Keynes. We arrived on the academy’s Culture Day, what a gorgeous kaleidoscope of colours from the garments worn by the pupils. So lovely to feel the buzz from the pupils and it definitely created an exciting atmosphere.
My first intention was to get a sense of the pupils’ everyday lives outside of school. What activities do they take part in, where do they socialise and who with.? Did all their socialising and activities take place in their neighbourhood or did they have to travel further afield.? It did cross my mind that having lived through our recent lockdowns, whether this had an impact on their social lives and if they felt things were back to normal.
Using paper plates, the pupils created a pie chart with bigger slices to represent the activities they undertook more frequently and smaller slices for the lesser activities. This was a fun visual representation to chart their everyday lives and I think the pupils really appreciated it.
Before discussing the public art commission, we looked at examples of famous public artworks. In particular, the many forms that public art can have and what it can represent and symbolise. For some pupils they could recall works that they had seen locally and further afield. At this point we talked about what functional public artwork they would like to see in Whitehouse.
With that in mind I asked the pupils to create a mood board using one of my favourite techniques called ‘sellotape painting’. Sellotape painting is a simple technique using strips of sellotape pressed over a newspaper/magazine. You then pull off the sellotape strips and are left with an imprint from the newspaper/magazine which you tape onto your paper. This creates a painted effect onto the paper and you repeat with new sellotape strips to develop your paint work. The sellotape represents the paintbrush and the newspaper/magazines as the paint palette. Initially as I had expected, the pupils thought I was a bit bonkers but once they all had a practice they seemed to really enjoy the technique.
I asked the pupils to focus on words, images and colour to represent their ideas for the new public artwork. Sellotape painting is a very mindful, therapeutic technique and everyone in the class was deep in concentration. The art teacher absolutely loved this technique and was keen to incorporate it in future projects.
At the end of the sellotape painting session we displayed all the square sheets together and discussed it in more detail. We had some lovely ideas including nature being a popular theme for a new public artwork. Butterfly and bird winged shaped seating came up a few times too. Popular words from the sellotape paintings included connect, community and calm.
To round off the session, we focused on the form and structure for the new public artwork using origami boxes to create shapes. Working in groups, the pupils created origami boxes and explored the different shapes that could be created. Working in groups was ideal as some could take the lead in deciding on the form and structure while others were busy with origami box creations.
This was the perfect way to end the session and I must say the pupils were brilliant and worked really hard considering the very hot weather we were experiencing at the time. I look forward to the next stage of the public art commission and seeing how the ideas of the pupils can be reflected in the final design.