Children Take the Lead

Listening

cambridgecandi — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 15:03:59 +0000

We have got a short clip up on Cambridge Curiosity and Imagination’s website.

Its a collection of little clips of the children talking about Kettle’s Yard.

Listening to the Children Talking about Kettle’s Yard

And we’re planning to make more clips soon – watch this space…

Half Way and Thinking Through

cambridgecandi — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 13:06:30 +0000

In the past few weeks we have been busy thinking through what has happened so far and what is still ahead. The Children Take the Lead project is about half way through now!

Things that have kept us busy include for example;
- Talking to designers and product development people ( there is a whole world out there so its taking us some time. Its like learning a new langauage)
- Meeting with other cultural venues and finding out where else the Props Box might travel to and how best to do that…
- Planning the next phase at Wysing Arts Centre-There is a lot to do as we have to plan the workshops and get ready to introduce 60 more children and their families to Wysing and the Props Box – very exciting!
- Thinking through ways of returning with the props box to the Spinney School, where it all started. We’d like to show the children what the research with them has made possible.

We’ll be in touch again soon to tell you more…

What people said about the PropsBox

cambridgecandi — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 14:33:55 +0000

Now that the first trials of the props box are behind us we are collecting the evaluation and the feedback.

Here is a small selection of the comments we’ve had so far (and the images don’t necessarily relate to the quotes). We will post more in the coming days once we have gathered them all.

‘I enjoyed the most being forced to focus on not too many things. Having to look at a few things in detail really makes you ‘see’. If I had come on my own I would have whizzed around and not really taken much in’.

Adrianna came with her 3 children (aged 6 to 11) and explained how it was different from visiting other museums or galleries: This was not the usual approach, not historical. It was lively, more fun and there was more stuff to do. You could do stuff. Having objects made it different. They created more interactions with the art and encouraged dialogue. It helped you communicate with the work and the artists. Normally you stand and look so feel separate and distant but this was like a bridging thing that helps you cross that line.

Marie (a mother who came with her baby and daughter) said: The Props Box was a nice way of introducing some joy into looking at art.

Mehrdad, who came with his toddler and 6 year old daughter commented: We noticed the sense of interesting confusion straightaway as we came in and saw the paintings and boxes. Questions instantly came up. I’ve always liked coming here but it is great to come with children into such an atmosphere and to have the box to facilitate the process – we didn’t have to come up with ways to sustain their interest. We used the dice to explore and talk about every painting and in the process talked in detail. My daughter wanted to go round all of them and repeat it. It was such a strong tool. We shared really complex conversations.

Games inside the Props Box

cambridgecandi — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 20:11:33 +0000

The games we suggested were based on some of the games the children had invented during the school workshops.

The blindfoldmask has two games. One of them is called blindfold tour. The rules of the blindfold tour were as follows:

Someone wears the blindfold.

Someone else finds an artwork and describes it.

The blindfolded person is spun round gently.

The blindfold is removed and they guess which artwork was described.

The describing the painting takes more time than the spinning round and guessing that succeeds it.

The Phono Cups were also very popular. One of the games was ”Muffy Man”- Someone chooses an artwork. Someone else puts the Phono Cups over their ears. First player describes their chosen artwork to the second player. The second player then passes the Phono Cups to the next person, and repeats the description, as best they can, to the new wearer of the Cups. When the Phono Cups get back to the person who had them first, the description is spoken out loud. On the count of three everyone points to the artwork that they thought was described.

Some people said that the strange echoey quality of the sound that came out one end when you spoke into the other end made it particularly fun. They made you more aware of the act of talking. One Dad told us that it was more fun to talk and in this way it generated new and different discussions.

We designed the props to have an ‘in between’ quality. We wanted it to be unclear exactly what they were for, and so for the objects to invite the invention of new uses. These two girls made up two games which were variations on a theme. In the first game, one player chooses colours and the other player guesses which ones the first player chose. The second game is similar, but the first player chooses holes instead.

Trying out the Props Box

cambridgecandi — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 19:19:08 +0000

When you open the props box, you see six compartments, each with an object. Ontop of the object is a card with some suggested ways to use the object.

For some families, it was not obvious what to do with these objects. Other families began to test out the props, combining them to make up new games. Experimenting with the possibilities offered by each prop was a recurrring theme.

One of the games we provided as a suggestion in the Prop Box involved describing an artwork to someone wearing the blindfold. Here is a family playing the game using the Bridget Riley painting called ‘Painting With Verticals 3′ (2006)

another suggested game was ‘Gallery Crab’:

Assembling The Props Box

cambridgecandi — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 18:17:53 +0000

We spent several weeks drawing together the ideas from the school workshops and the family workshops. We made drawings, we planned, we sourced materials, we stuck, sewed, and printed. By the end we had produced six props for people to use at Kettle’s Yard on the weekend of public trials.

Limescale The Kettles Yard Dog

cambridgecandi — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 10:30:25 +0000

The box that we gave to each family included a dog lead for an invisible dog. The dog’s name is Limescale, and he lives at Kettles Yard.

Alistair is holding the dog lead with Limescale ‘the invisible dog’. This is the end of his go with Limescale. The dog leads him into the corner close to the gallery entrance. Then the dog lies down underneath the bench and Alistair hands the lead to his Mum. Alistair’s still full of energy, from using the dog lead perhaps, or just from being who he is. Straight after he’s handed over the dog lead, he does a rhythmic walk around the space in front of the bench, moving his arms like a cartoon of an ancient Egyptian.

Later Leo (Alistair’s Dad) tells me that Alistair took on the idea that Limescale was leading him around the gallery. Alistair stopped in front of the pictures that Limescale liked. Alistair had to translate for Limescale, since none of the others in the family could hear or understand him. As it happened, Limescale liked all the same pictures as Alistair.

It seems important

Blindfold Art Appreciation

cambridgecandi — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 17:40:04 +0000

Alistair and Leo’s (Alistair’s Dad) have found another more familiar use for the shawl. They are doing something similar to the Child-led Blindfold Tour which began the first of these family sessions. Leo is now blindfolded and standing in front of another painting. Alistair describes it to him:

It’s like lots of bombs coming down from the top. Falling. Or bodies falling.

What are the shapes?

Small. Smaller.

Are there reds?

Yeah!

Yellows?

Not really.

And blues?

Yeah.

When Leo removes his blindfold he looks at the painting with Alistair’s words in mind. Alistair points and gestures to show how he sees the diagonal lines (created by the blocks of colour) as bombs falling.

I don’t think that Alistair was seeing the painting as representational. He knew that the painting was composed of simple blocks, each of uniform colour (though of course he wouldn’t have put it like that). At the same time suggestions and imaginative scenes came quickly to him. It was as though he uses the painting as a starting point; visually he steps through the painting to something beyond it which is a fusion of his own internal concerns and the framework of shapes and colour offered by the painting.

Three-legged Art Appreciation

cambridgecandi — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 17:34:15 +0000

Alistair (aged 5) and Leo (Alistair’s Dad) have taken the shawl from their Resource Box. They have tied their legs together as if they were doing a three-legged race. Leo is smiling. Alistair is giggling so much he is bent right over, but they still manage to move along. When they get to the double-height space they separate. Alistair laughs even more as Leo re-ties the shawl, this time round their tummies so that they are joined back to back.

Later, over lunch, when Leo talked to me about this incident, he explained that the three-legged walk was his suggestion, but as they struggled along, they both came up with the idea of being back to back, as it would make them think more about looking.

In the double-height space, Leo and Alistair are in front of ‘Rêve’, a large painting. It is composed of larger shapes than most of the other work in this exhibition. This makes it easier to look at than many of the other Bridget Riley paintings, more inviting. As they are back to back, only Alistair can see the painting. Leo is asking about the painting and Alistair is describing it:

What’s on the painting?

Feathers and grass.

What colours?

Green. And diamonds. And purple.

Then they shuffle round, so that Leo is facing the painting and Alistair is facing away. Continuing the jokiness from before, Leo disagrees with Alistair’s description of the colours:

It’s not purple!

I meant blue.

Then Alistair begins to wiggle, and Leo unties them both.

For me watching the two of them, what seemed so successful were the many different ways in which the experience was played out. It was about being close to each other and enjoying that contact, about doing something both silly and challenging, about finding playful ways to approach the paintings, and about using the physical sensations of being tied together to shape they way they looked at a painting which Alistair already liked.

The Objects in the Box

cambridgecandi — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 22:28:27 +0000

The objects in the cloth bags were as follows:

a magician’s wand plus a pair of white gloves plus a drawing showing a magican’s wand transforming the gallery in a flash

a lead for an invisible dog plus the following words “This is Limescale, the Kettle’s Yard dog. He can take you round the house and gallery. There’s two things you should know about him: He has strong responses to the artwork. And he’s invisible. Why not let him guide you round? See if you can find the spot where he likes to have a snooze.”

a blank cardboard dice and a pencil

a large yellow foldable hat

a shawl

a pair of sunglasses