INSPIRER SERIES: Tilleke Schwarz - 20.03.15

Independent Meeting With Thursday Late Group #5 - 20.03.15

Need to finalise some ideas about the workshop pitch, go over general structure of the pitch as a whole and work out who is saying what, whether there will be assigned speakers or whether it's going to be more of an informal discussion.

Powerpoint presentation? Images? Mood board?
Bring in sheets that we've been working on, the paper, raw ideas, or professionally presented?

We're favouring the more professional approach, especially given the publication and general manifesto that we have, there would be no need to backtrack necessarily.

More ideas: there could be a key, coloured arrows on the floor taking you to certain places and workshops, encouraging you to look at particular pieces. Some members of the group wanted the arrows to be confusing and to lead the public to dead ends and things like that but I'm not sure how much of a good idea that's going to be, how comfortable an experience it'll be for the public.

- I wrote an email to ART BAR, asking if she would like to take part in the event and asking for more specifics on charges and things like that.
- I wrote the pitch for the engagement performance
- Pitch for drawing workshop

Initial draft of the publication by Laura Monk, I'm really happy with it.
Logo design by Sam Whitham and Hassan Mohammed:

INSPIRER SERIES: Brendan Dawes, Jonathan McGrath/Albino Mosquito, Charlie Parish - 19.03.15

INSPIRER SERIES: Susie MacMurray - 17.03.15

• 2001 graduate of BA Sculpture and MA Fine Art, creates site specific works, large installations.
• Latex filled balloons, an early piece - she loved the juxtaposition of something voluptuous and full with being fragile. She was always getting her head around these things with materials.
• She found it really difficult to finish sculptures because she didn't feel like she had the arrogance or confidence to say that this was her piece of work and this is how it is. Second guessing herself a lot. Possibly for this reason, she wasn't happy with her degree show but appreciated that the degree show is in fact that beginning and not the end.
• FLOCK - Manchester, wall of black feathers.
• Hairnets, gauzy materials, an ephemeral piece about memory, deconsecrated workplaces, echoes of people. 10,000 hairnets made up a piece called ECHO and was installed to describe the volume of the space. There was nothing present in that piece that did not need to be there. This was in 2006, and she also lost her husband at that time.
• Installed a large piece on the walls of a house that was bound in histories of convenient, loveless marriages and riches-to-ruins stories. Hot glued 22,000 muscle shells containing red silk velvet. This piece was all about excess, luxury, money, seduction and sumptuousness. Students and volunteers helped her install it and she collected the muscles herself from a fish restaurant. The whole installation of the piece took 7 day, from morning until night and it stayed there for 18 months. she was surprised at how many people actually saw the piece, she didn't realise that the place had such a great traffic of people coming through its doors.

• Keddleston in Derbyshire - it was a house built to show off and the interiors do not veer from this intention. She created an installation of gold threat, the way it caught the light was so beautiful. Sometimes it would look solid, other times you couldn't see it at all. But particularly, it was lovely when it became hazy, like a lazy gold mist descending on the room.

• She has turned down many projects, despite being well paid, because she doesn't want to compromise her integrity, lose her soul in someways.
• She made a number of garments and gowns: rubber balloon dress, weighed about 8 stone. That was a piece that got her a lot of recognition. Latex glove dress, that has actually been bought now. Leather with needles in a particular dress that I liked - wearable sculpture...well just about wearable.
• She also makes many drawings and enjoys doing them, but feels the two sides of her practice don't match.

BROKE// Collective

- Challenging the sustainability of design today: what happened to 'make-do and mend'?

- Ownership and authorship: they gave you the instructions, but you made it - to whom does it then belong?

- Art and Design: what bridges the gap?

- Value: who are they to say?

"BROKE// is a collective that questions and challenges preconceptions about art and design in a recession-riddled economy and a broke society.
Can art and design thrive in a recession? We are Broke, and we think it can."

#WEAREBROKE

Independent Meeting With Thursday Late Group #4 - 18.03.15

#WEAREBROKE

Finalised name - BROKE - created a collective, a brand, that responds to exhibition.

TO-DO:

• Manifesto
• Presentation/prep for pitch
• Expand on workshops where needed (sol lewitt, quilt, crockery, building etc)
• Talk about engagement - how are we going to engage the public with the message? (play, encourage adults to reconsider what it is to make art, design etc.
• Catalogue/publications

(dowling, baser would we could use for the construction workshop), think about the noise if that was in the atrium, the sound carries and if we have drills going etc... what effect would that have on not only the sound but the atmosphere?

Collage, merging modern and old, expensive and cheap, ornate and plain (catalogue).

WORKSHOP: Budget of a certain amount of money, boxes of items of a certain price, have to fill room according to taste based on budget, see how far you can get - makes a comment about value and potentially class as well.

Basic Concept: A Collective

What do we all think the Broke Collective/BROKE Collective is? What do we want it to be and what do we want it to say? What is important to us based on this exhibition and how can we show that?

1. Challenging the sustainability of design today - what happened to 'make-do and mend'?
2. Ownership and authorship - they gave you the instructions, but you made the chair: to who does this piece then belong to and under what pretenses? Does this matter?
3. Art and Design - what bridges the gap? What lies in the abyss in between?
4. Value - who are they to say?

I came up with this as a short statement about the collective:

"BROKE// is a collective that questions and challenges preconceptions about art and design in a recession-riddled economy and a broke society.
Can art and design thrive in a recession? We are Broke, and we think it can."

I came across this after the meeting and it made me think of the issue of the kinds of materials we could provide people to build with other than furniture. Some of the group weren't happy with working with cardboard but thin wooden board like this with slats in could make some really interesting pieces and they're certainly easier to put together and handle, and are maybe more accessible for members of the public who aren't comfortable or familiar with working this way. The idea of things slotting together, there's already a template - vary the shapes, sizes - could this work?

Independent Meeting With Thursday Late Group #3 and Research Meeting with Dave Griffiths - 17.03.15

Good design and affordable, "Do I care about design? I'm broke" ... "Art / Design(s) / Life"
Playing around with titles, more appropriate for what we want to discuss, the kinds of angles we want to take.
Missing parts, broken items for workshops - could contact Ikea for broken items that cannot be sold anymore, other furniture stockists Skips etc, anywhere to find old pieces of furniture to disassemble and reassemble.



SOL LEWITT - ART WITH INSTRUCTIONS, DESIGN WITHOUT INSTRUCTIONS
How do you design art? Can you design art? Can something be art and design? Think about functionality of objects, does having a function mean it has been designed that way? Intentional function maybe, intentional design. Art - finding function where there wasn't one before - or embracing that it has no function and not everything in life has to.

POTENTIAL WORKSHOP - DESIGN DRAWINGS, instructions, see work of Sol Lewitt.

Creative play - adults engaging materials in a raw, organic and playful way - encouraging them to rethink what they know about materials and art and design and what constitutes them all.

Personified teapot? Plate? A creative writing piece that tells a story, tells THE story of an object rather than the public reading off a card.Performance piece possibly, actors.

Think about music: street rats? Piccadilly rats? Buskers, the music needs to make a comment, there can't just be music for the sake of having music, it has to be relevant - they would make a comment on class, value etc.

"Made by..." deals with ideas of authorship and ownership.

"BROKE" as a title? Something short and snappy, can have a tagline. Broke has a double meaning, can be applied to our ideas in all sorts of ways.

BROKE: SUSTAINABILITY IN A RECESSION
BROKE: DESIGN LOVES A RECESSION
BROKE: RECESSION AND POSSESSION             .....more title ideas?

Need to deal with the health and safety of materials. Flat pack furniture, how big? Wardrobe? MAG health and safety policies, is this going to be doable? Suggested just doing it on a slightly smaller, more manageable scale, bedside cabinets, small chairs, stools etc.
Cardboard? What kinds of materials instead of wood? Can be masking-taped? Glued? Think about logistics.

HEALTH AND SAFETY, WHAT TO ASK MANCHESTER ART GALLERY:

I came across this after the meeting and it made me think of the issue of the kinds of materials we could provide people to build with other than furniture. Some of the group weren't happy with working with cardboard but thin wooden board like this with slats in could make some really interesting pieces and they're certainly easier to put together and handle, and are maybe more accessible for members of the public who aren't comfortable or familiar with working this way. The idea of things slotting together, there's already a template - vary the shapes, sizes - could this work?

Independent Meeting With Thursday Late Group #2 - 16.03.15

Depression // Recession
Livable modernism, design lover, functionalism.

Povert vs prosperity, in home items, way of living, access to certain things, who would attend galleries and who would own certain items.

Use everything, upcycle, recycle, don't waste anything, MAKE DO AND MEND, the price is right game? Spot the Ikea, spot the bespoke design etc, what price would you guess certain items at.

1930s Slang: BULGE - 'having the advantage
                     CRUMB - 'loser by social standards'               name ideas?

'Do I care about design? I'm broke', 'Design Loves A Recession,'...'I don't care about design - I'm broke.'

Using Ikea as a metaphor for the times we're in.

INSPIRER SERIES: Zoe Watson and Aliyah Hussain - 16.03.15

INSPIRER SERIES: Luke Jerram - 13.03.15

• www.streetpianos.com
• Multidisciplinary artist from Bristol, deals with interactive pieces and installations, generally focuses on mechanical and technological themes.
• Graduated from Cardiff in 1997 and is happy to apply his creativity to anything: he is not so concerned with giving himself a title of a painter or a sculptor etc. He doesn't like to pigeon hole himself or be at risk of only being associated with certain pieces of work so he is always evolving his practice - this gives him a lot of freedom.
• He made am engagement ring for his now-wife which had the sound of his voice proposing etched into it. He was really interested in the idea of making sound a tangible thing. For his wife's wedding ring he played around with lenses and negatives and made a ring that projected a picture of them and their children when you shone a light through it.

• 'Meteor Catcher'
• He wanted to make a piece that was controlled by the moon: initial tests proved that it worked but he needed a more sophisticated design that didn't make mixing water with electricity and moving parts so difficult. The end result was a round glass bowl of water that spun, and like when you glide your finger around the rim of the wine glass, the piece that contacted the rim would make this round bowl 'sing' in the same way. The sounds would vary in pitch depending on where the moon was.
• He continued this theme of singing sculptures and produced a piece that howled and sung in the wind, inspired by well diggers that he saw in a desert. This piece took a great deal of planning and was extremely expensive. Originally he had intended that the piece be a dome or a construction that you could walk into, but construction and production costs mean that he decided to build only a segment of it himself and pitched the idea by Photoshopping his design into certain settings.

• He gets the go-ahead for many of his proposals now: he stresses that if you deliver each time you are given funding for something, they can increase it every time: they begin to trust you with bigger projects which is how he was able to create this singing wind sculpture that cost around half a million.
• Strapping speakers to hot air balloons and playing them in the sky - an immersive, socially inclusive piece that you didn't have to even really leave your home to see. It divided no one, could be heard and seen by everyone, irrelevant of glass, gender, race or sexuality. It was just simply present.
• Glass sculptures of bacteria and viruses - a lot of scientific publications like to use his work. He got a glassblower to do it rather than doing it himself because he knew that he could not produce the outcome that he wanted. He found them to be really successful and began to sell a lot of them for a healthy sum.

• Pixelated sculpture of his daughter at a train station, dedicated to her.
• Park Slide - Bristol. Huge event, took up the whole street and there was a great number of people. It marked Bristol as a vibrant place to be and really put them on the map - the whole world was talking about it. People could win tickets to go on the slide.
• He has had trouble of people copying his ideas: many cities over the world now do waterslides of their own, some even travel to festivals and places like that. The same goes for 'Play me, I'm Yours.' Many places have set up their own pianos to be played with no reference made to the actual artist. However, while this occasionally bothers him he would rather just move on to bigger and better things, he's amazed by the whole thing.

Independent Meeting With Thursday Late Group #1 - 12.03.15

Workshops, publications, project running, project managers, visual graphics team?
How to sort people out into groups and what groups they might be - better to be flexible and interchangeable, course not relevant.

Points taken from the first meeting at Manchester Art Gallery:

• women's artwork is less valuable - important art pieces were removed from the gallery during the war while less 'valuable' and 'important' pieces, predominantly by women, were left.
• responsible living, sustainability
• link between 1930s and today
• depression and recession, class and value
• the link between art and design, what bridges the gap

General ideas based on the above: broken plates, crockery, china, make-do-and-mend workshop, part of Lily's practice and could make a really great workshop. Parties, the Bauhaus, design from that era, how does this relate to now. Design through the years, how does a depression or a recession influence art and design, does affordability come into it? Re-use cups for drinks on the night: jars, tins, old mugs, etc. Look at 1930s Manchester, maybe have the rooms titled different things, discussing or looking at something different from that time.

"85 Years Later" - a retrospective

'85 Years Later - A retrospective on design throughout... (?)'

City News, Date Stamps, thinking of a title and coming up with a solid identity. 1930s angle seems to be of strong interest to the majority of the group - themed music, performances, thinking about costume and dress, maybe a performance wearing those clothes using those designs but in a dialogue that is more representative of current issues and modern society - they could be making a social comment.

Possible Workshops: typewriter, communal, public could type comments in, what they liked about the exhibition etc, cloth/drawing/quilt making, hung? Draped on the floor? Using fabric pens etc, in response to a particular piece/set of pieces/particular exhibition. In the atrium, large piece, hung?

Furniture. building, deconstructing, having instructions for a bed but the pieces for a chair and asking them to construct the bed to see how they combat it. Less figurative, more conceptual maybe? Get things back to looking, experiencing, initial reactions and responses: making organic structures and pieces.

LOOK IN CHARITY SHOPS, WAREHOUSES, SKIPS ETC, things left around the studio, think re-using, gathering materials, sustainability.

INSPIRER SERIES: Dave Haslam - 12.03.15

• Dave Haslam was particularly interested in fanzines and how they are a publication for those in the margins of society. He described one of these zines as being for the minority, those with particular interests, who don't fit in and don't feel like there is anything for them in the mainstream media.
• He related a great deal of his talk, in fact the entirety of it, I believe, to Manchester, as a cultural hub and place that celebrates those in the margins. He explored this angle through a number of Mancunian musicians and bands and specifically spoke about the transition of something from underground into mainstream. Joy Division was a particularly good example of this: a band whose final gigs attracted only 300 people at most, they are now a globally recognised band and are constantly featured and made reference to throughout popular culture today, despite their cult, niche status at the time. He described Joy Division as "Hollywood's shortcut to artistic integrity," and I completely fell in love with the way he worded this because it really is completely true.
• Haslam could not stress enough the importance of people finding a space: both geographically and culturally. He spoke of small, dodgy clubs down ally ways in Manchester, somewhere hidden for those who actively seek it - somewhere hidden from the eyes of the mainstream.
• Artists, writers, places, venues and figures that were influential around that time: Shelagh Delaney, 'A Taste of Honey,' (1958), Crack Gallery - 'Drunk at Vogue,' City Fun fanzine, Linder Sterling, Manchester District Music Archive, The Hacienda, The Mineshaft, The Chemical Brothers.
• City Fun - "the first draft of cultural history." A very 'punk' publication, punk was about participation, going to events, meeting people, and not just talking about it and reading out it over the internet and on Facebook like we so often to today. It was the time of making things happen, being active and going out and doing it, whatever 'it' may be.

INSPIRER SERIES: Andrew Brooks - 12.03.15

•  Composite photographer that does both commercial work and independent work. Photographing came about when he decided he wanted to push himself in something that he was not familiar with, a drive that has continued throughout his practice in the way that he tackled portrait photography specifically because he wasn't confident in that area.

SEALAND: This place does not actually exist: he composed it from a number of different images in his archive using Photoshop.

• He's very interested in immersive photography: that seeing photographs in a gallery should be an experience. He set up prints of photographs and videos from a project in Iceland on curved walls. What he was particularly interested in about Iceland was the short days: he wanted to play around with a dusky feel and capture how Iceland still feels like it's emerging from the ground.

LAST LIGHT - DYRH LAEY, Iceland

• 'Hidden Manchester' - tunnels in Manchester, underground, abandoned etc. His photographs contain a lot of detail and can be blown up to very large scales without decreasing the quality. For this reason, the images captured the essences of these derelict spaces really well.

St Phillips Church Crypt - Exploring Manchester

• He spoke a little about curating work and setting up prints for exhibitions: their position, how you mount them on a wall is so important. Light boxes can make images glow with vibrance. He advised putting money aside to get the most out of the lighting and in turn the most out of the prints.
• He tries to take influence from as many places as possible: movies, painters etc, odd and old places in new cities. He ensures that he exhibits at least once in Manchester every two years, whether that be a group exhibition, a commissioned exhibition or a self-funded exhibition. He feels it's important to upkeep that element of your practice. A good way of making money is selling the work prior to the exhibition so that you have the funding while you are setting it up. He finds it fun doing self-funded exhibitions because you make all the rules.
• He spoke of a few creative agencies in the city, some in the Northern Quarter. He recommends building a good relationship with agencies because that can get you a lot of work. He worked particularly with Raw Design, and they were able to offer a project to him involving the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra. He was commissioned to take photographs that represented each of the pieces of music. In some cases, he had to add certain bits or play around with the composition on Photoshop to adapt to the portrait dimensions, as he is typically familiar with landscape, almost panoramic shots.

Wood Nymph - For the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra

• Working with people in your peer group and developing your own exhibitions and building things up with them is a really good idea, because you don't get in above your head that way and you are already a part of a solid network of people that you can relate to and can work well with.

Meeting and Thursday Late Introduction With Kate Day, Kate Jesson and Dave Griffiths @ Manchester Art Gallery

Session Plan: Launch Meeting

1.30pm -

• Welcome
• Introduce staff
• Ask students to introduce themselves and say one thing about why they chose this particular project.
• Evaluation so far of 'Art School Whitworth'
• Intro to the project, handbook and timetable
• Slides and video of last year's 'Centre for the Imagination'

2.00pm -

• Intro to 'Design for Living' and 'Eastern Exchange' exhibitions

2.45pm -

• Introduction to public engagement programme at MAG including introduction to learning programme, Thursday Lates and collaboration.
• Discussion, how might students respond?

3.15pm -

• Gallery tour/walk through

3.30pm -

• Practicalities - calender, how to book onto sessions, meetings and expectations.

Above is a breakdown of what the schedule and structure of the meeting was, and we were handed a sheet that contained this information prior to beginning discussion. It was interesting to find out why people had chosen this particular unit and project and really made me realise just the breadth of experience that I would get out of taking part and contributing. Personally, I chose Unit X - College 1: #2 Engagement because I wanted to gain further experience in areas within the arts other than being a practitioner that I could apply my Fine Art degree to.

          Kate Jesson had put together some mood boards focusing on the exhibitions that will be running prior to and during our Thursday Late, focusing on some key pieces and ideas from these exhibitions which we could respond to when thinking about the kind of event we want to plan. I was particularly drawn to the way that she compared the economy of the 1930s to the economy of today, and how she imagines years in the future, they will be comparing this decade to the '30s, because of correlating issues such as the depression and the recession. I also liked the focus of finding that bridge between art and design, something that is both an example of art and design and blurs the two practices, for example, if a piece of art also has a function. I found this to be a particularly useful concept in generating ideas that I could contribute to the group. Can you design a piece of artwork? How do you design a piece of artwork? Can a table still be a work of art?

          We discussed some of the logistics of the event as well, such as opening and closing times, if we could store items, which rooms we could use and to some extent how we could play around with the exhibition. To get a better idea of how this event may manifest, we looked at last year's Thursday Late for ideas and inspiration and focused on what worked well and why.
        Kate Day then gave us a small talk/presentation reiterating what Manchester Art Gallery was all about in terms of being a cultural, educational and critical hub in the heart of the city. She condensed this into the following points:

What - Art Upfront: showing you art you know and art you don't yet know.

Why - Extraordinary Encounters: igniting curiosity and conversation.

How - Radical Popularity: big hearted, audacious, inclusive.

Being Brilliant

We want to be a brilliant gallery for Manchester - rooted in our city but connected with the world, putting art upfront and making sure our collections are at the heart of everything we do.

In keeping with the ethos of the city, we've crafted our own radically popular way of doing things: big hearted, audacious and inclusive.

Known for our experimentation and surprise, we regularly juxtapose the traditional and the cutting edge, the provocative with the familiar. Always putting art up front to create extraordinary encounters and ignite curiosity and conversation.

Delivering Brilliance

We'll achieve our ambition by being a gallery where:

• people have encounters with extraordinary art, discover art that is new to them and revisit art that they know
• everyone can have conversations about at, can learn and enjoy themselves
• our historic connections connect people to today's Manchester
• there's space for popular ideas to be communicated, making us the best gallery in the city
• we're willing to take risks with our visitors and make bold choices about what we show
• we combine local resonance with international reach and connections

And we'll make that happen by being both radical and popular.

Our manifesto sets out what we do, why we do it, how we do it and where we're trying to get to. it acts as a guide for all decision making in the gallery.

As a daily mantra, we must ask ourselves, is this a brilliant thing to do? Would a brilliant international gallery do this? What will I do to help transform things? Is the work we're doing, the art we're showing, the events we're organising both radical and popular?

Manchester Art Gallery Learning Team - Making Art Personal

Who are we?
We are a team of gallery educators who have honed our skills and expertise to work with a range of ages, individuals and groups. We cherish creative and open-minded learning and seek to engage our audiences in the cultural life of the Gallery. We place Manchester Art Gallery's connections, exhibitions and audiences at the heart of what we do. We learn with our audiences to build up expertise, knowledge and skills. We are learners too.

What do we do?
We believe art enables people to see beyond their horizons; to escape, to play, to create, to tell stories, to see beyond the obvious. Manchester Art Gallery's learning programme creates multiple ways for audiences to engage with art. With our audiences we talk about, analyse, create and share art. We interact in workshops, drop in sessions, events inside and outside the gallery walls and by creating a social space where all visitors feel welcome.

We particularly value:

• helping our audiences create aspirations and expectations - and then exceeding them
• recognising that personal learning journeys start and birth and continue throughout life
• never being didactic. Instead we work with our audiences to gain more knowledge and expertise
• seeking out the original and the unique
• recognising that the search for meaning and understanding is as important as the meaning itself.

We are committed to using our expertise to make the best and most effective use of our resourses for the greatest benefit of our audiences.

At the end of the discussion we went for a short walk around the gallery and had a look at the permanent exhibitions and the spaces for future exhibitions so as to get a feel for the place and start to imagine the gallery being filled with an event like that of a Thursday Late.

Before the end of the session we independently made a Facebook group and planned an independent meeting with the group in the interactive studio to go through some initial ideas and to see what everyone's first response was.

Leading and co-developing an Art School: Draw session for Secondary and Post 16 @ The Whitworth

The night before the day of the drawing session, Sarah kindly sent me a document of the rough timetable for the afternoon and also an activity sheet that was to be handed out to students. The general outline of the session was as follows:

Time	Activity	What are students doing?
5 mins	Welcome	Setting students – showing them where they can put their things etc.
5 mins	Introduction ·         A co-development session ·         Aims ·         What would you like to get from this session? ·         We want you to try-out some of our ideas. ·         We would like to hear about your ideas ·         We want to hear if you like them or not.	Thinking about own projects how researching the Whitworth could help them progress etc. Thinking about sharing their ideas and feedback throughout the session
3 mins	Looking and warming up activity ·         Wonder around this gallery space-look all around you & get your bearings.  Note (in your mind) what you first notice!	Looking around thinking  Noting what they first see.
3 mins	Feedback Your in a new gallery space - takes a while to see everything don’t you think? What is it like just to look around? What sort of things can you find?	Telling us what they noticed Saying what their experience of looking was like
5 mins	Mark making activity in gallery space Warm-up doodle shapes – circles Doodle – different lines and shading Two pencils Drawing using someone else’s hand
10 mins	Drawing activities Left /right – object in gallery Blind Memory
5 mins	Annotate what you did	Writing
3 mins	Feedback
5 mins	Questions & discussion ·         So why do people draw? What’s it all about? ·         If you met and alien, and they spoke English, how would you explain what drawing is? ·         What is classed as a drawing – what do you think is labelled as a drawing in a gallery? ·         What would you expect to see? ·         What materials would you expect to find an artist use to make a drawing? ·         Why do you do it – Sam? ·         Why do you do it – Students?	Thinking Answering questions Listening to each other
3 mins	Thomas Schutte ·         Wonder around and look at what is here. On your way round note in your mind what you see.	Wondering Looking Noting
3 mins	What did you see? ·         Feedback ·         Did you see any marks? How many?	Looking Drawing Writing
10 mins	Drawing ·         Draw 5 different ways to make a mark looking at Thomas Schutte’s work. ·         Annotate your work – use formal elements to help you. ·         Think about when does a mark become a drawing?	Drawing
5 min	Sarah Lucas – exploring other ways of making drawing using new materials ·         Make a string drawing of her portrait – photograph ·         Think about what new materials you could use to make a drawing
3 mins	Feedback
20 mins	Cornelia Parker – light ·         Quick drawing - something shinny, wooden, red, green, square, round ·         Draw a view of this work- use a view finder
5 mins	Work with a partner and describe your drawing using descriptive language  Make notes here from what is said.	Discussing
5 mins	Using your notes now annotate your drawings Annotate your work – use formal elements to help you.	Writing
5 mins	4) Peer assess your partner’s annotations a) What annotations has your partner made that are good? b) What annotations could be improved or developed further? c) Explain your assessment to your partner, give some examples if possible
5 mins	5) Evaluate your drawing a) Say what you are pleased about in your drawing. b) Say what could be improved or developed further – think about your use of materials, processes and technical skills.
5 mins	If time go outside to make Andy Goldsworthy throwing sticks piece & Photograph
	6) Feedback from session a) What activities did you most enjoy from the workshop? b) If you could have changed an activity what would that be and why? c) What activities did we not include that you would had liked to have done
	End-thank you

Myself and Sam arrived an hour earlier than the start of the session so as to help with setting up the space and gathering all the materials we needed, such as the pencils, erasers, clipboards and string etc. During this time we were also able to finalize some of the ideas we had for the session and work towards a more rigid structure. We decided in the end that we would use the learning space as a meeting and departure point as opposed to working in the space. We thought it less restricting to work in situ in the exhibitions and work directly from what was on display.

          After meeting the students and giving them a brief introduction, we went straight into the gallery to begin the first session:

Warm-Up Activity: Looking

This first activity was designed to aid the students in getting their bearings in the gallery as a space. They were asked to note what it was they first noticed upon entering the gallery and seeing the space in an unconventional way, such as looking at the shapes in the architecture, the shadows, or even certain sounds they could hear. Many of the students first noted the expanse of the space and the way that sound easily carried. As myself, Sarah and Denise found out in this particular room, the way the sound carried, especially with the number of people present, made it an uncomfortable space for discussion and dialogue: you felt like you were constantly fighting against other noises, which were amplified and echoed by the room's large hard surfaces. It was also difficult to hold the attention of the students, as the room is somewhat of an assault on the senses and distracted the students from the tasks at hand. During the debriefing after the session, we all agreed that this room is not suitable for activities of that nature and will be avoided with such tasks in the future.

Mark-making Activity in Gallery Space

To further encourage and warm up the students, we set them a simple drawing task that encouraged them to think about drawing as a form of mark-making. We gave them different methods of drawing to try, such as using two pencils simultaneously, drawing with the opposite hand, drawing from memory and making blind drawings. At this point, 20 students had been divided into two groups of 10, one under the supervision of Denise and Sam and the other of Sarah and I. I generally alternated between the groups as I was asked to take photographs of the session, but found working with both groups doable. I would talk to the students and ask how they were finding the tasks, and generally sparking up a conversation about drawing, as it's something that is very important in my own practice.

 

Questions and Discussion

During this activity, we handed out an activity sheet that contained the following:

1) Work with a partner and think about the following questions

a) Why do people draw? What’s it all about?b) If you met and alien, and they spoke English, how would you explain what drawing is?

c) What is classed as a drawing – what do you think is labelled as a drawing in a gallery and what would you expect to see?

e) Why do you do it?

2) Work with a partner and describe your drawings using descriptive language 

Make notes here from what is said. 

3) Using your notes now annotate your drawings

4) Peer assess your partner’s annotations

a) What annotations has your partner made that are good?

b) What annotations could be improved or developed further?

c) Explain your assessment to your partner, give some examples if possible

 5) Evaluate your drawing

a) Say what you are pleased about in your drawing.

b) Say what could be improved or developed further – think about your use of materials, processes and technical skills.

Once the students had completed the sheet, we brought the two groups back together to discuss the questions, stressing that there was neither a wrong nor right answer. The students found the questions particularly challenging, some even calling them "pointless" questions, but I felt that this was a good trigger to spark a healthy dialogue about what drawing is and what it could be. I was sincere with the students in my conversation with them and in my answers and found that I could explain certain questions to them in simpler terms or in ways that they would understand, and I felt that by the end of this session, even though they may not have particularly understood it, the horizons of drawing as a practice had broadened for them.

Thomas Schutte and Sarah Lucas

For this activity, the groups were divided once more into two groups of 10: one group participated in an activity in the Schutte exhibition and the other in the Lucas exhibition and switched after approximately 20 minutes.

          I was able to move from one room to the other, observing how the students responded to the tasks. These two rooms were far better for both discussion and for working in, and it was palpable that the students felt far more at ease in these rooms.

          I believe that the string activity in the Sarah Lucas exhibition was the most successful. The task was to recreate the portrait drawing with cigarettes but with string, and I found that the students engaged with this task far more than in any other. They began describing what they had done with the string, the form they had created on the floor, as a drawing, and I personally find that to be a great success as it shows that the students began thinking outside the box with regards to what a drawing can be and what materials can be used to create a drawing.

 

As you can see in the image above, some of the students played around with the activity and responded to it in a different way, which produced some really successful work.

         The task set in the Schutte exhibition was to observe all the different marks that the artist had made in his prints, and to note down some of these marks. This activity was more discussion based in some aspects, because it was again challenging their preconceptions about not only drawing, but art as a whole. While some students found it more engaging provoking these kinds of discussions, others found this time to do some independent drawing and really engage with the prints in the room, which was lovely to see.

Cornelia Parker, Cold Dark Matter - An Exploded View, 1991

For the final practical task, we had the students produce quick drawings based on this piece, whether that be round or square objects, shiny objects or shadows. We also encouraged them to use a viewfinder to locate interesting compositions. This was another successful task, and I found that the students really applied themselves and not only completed the task, but enjoyed participating in the task. It seemed that with every task or activity we gave them, they would engage more and more with what was in front of them and the drawings they were producing even more.

Feedback From Students and Debriefing

During the debriefing with Sarah and Denise, we looked and discussed some of the feedback we got from the students: we received mixed responses from the students, although more positive ones than we had anticipated. As I had predicted, the most popular tasks were the Sarah Lucas string drawing and working with the Cornelia Parker piece. While a great deal of their feedback was positive, they also had some fair criticism: they didn't enjoy sitting on the floor and found it uncomfortable to work that way. Additionally, they would have preferred to have spent more time on some tasks than others, but appreciated the fact that lots of different activities kept them on their toes.

     Based on the discussion that I had with Sarah and Denise, we found the source of a number of problems that we had with the session. We decided that the clipboards that we offered out simply didn't work, and that it would be far better to have students bring their own sketchbooks in the future. By conducting this session, the first to be had in the newly renovated space, we were able to get our own bearings in the gallery and decide what worked and what didn't. For example, the large gallery with the wall of windows is not suitable for group discussions and drawing activities: your senses are bombarded with sounds, light, the view of the park, the constant stream of visitors to the gallery and just the general buzz that permeates the whole room. We agreed that the Sarah Lucas and Thomas Schutte were great spaces to work and discuss in, as they were a great deal smaller and something as simple as the ceilings being lower made all the difference to the general atmosphere of the tasks that took place there.

          We concluded that while the session did not run smoothly, the space was very challenging at times and some students were, at times, difficult to work with, the session was in fact a success in the way that illuminated all the issues that come with working in a new space and gave us something to work and build upon for the next drawing session.