Storyteller Ed Boxall tells us how he introduces little ones to art and exhibitions at the DLWP.
I like to base sessions for the pre-schoolers at Tales For Toddlers on coinciding exhibitions at the De La Warr. So, inspired by the Hayv Kahraman exhibition, Tales for Toddlers for February was all about pattern. Pattern appears in all sorts of ways in her work- the fabric of the clothes, the rhythms of the bodies.
The link to the exhibition needs of course to be right for the age group. With toddlers, we’re not ‘educating about art’ but experiencing the fundamental processes involved. In the long run, we might be helping children to get in the habit of delightful artistic processes and perhaps seeing a connection between what they do and things they see in galleries.
We had the space ready for the children by covering the floor with giant paper. You need something for children to do if they arrive early so they started by drawing round bits of their bodies with bright oil crayons on the paper while everyone arrived. They could repeat patterns with hands, fingers, feet and whole body shapes.
When everyone was ready, we moved onto pattern in poetry and enjoyed Brian Moses’ ‘Walking My Iguana’, which has a great chorus to repeat. Next, musical instruments were handed out and we noisily got to know our chosen instrument. We all joined in with my song ‘Yellow Cars’ which has a nice loud/quiet pattern from verse to verse.
We went back to the big paper for the remainder of the session but with some more pattern based processes to use. I brought rubbers to print with, stamp pads, patterned gift wrap and textured wallpaper. The stamp pads are great when you want to print but don’t quite want the full on mess of printing ink.
The children were probably unaware that we were ‘exploring pattern’ but I hope had a great time doing so and parents and children left with some easy things to try at home.
More Tales For Toddlers workshops with different storytellers and workshop leaders will take place on March 11, April 8 and May 13. See our full workshop list and sign up here.
Project Art Works’ Seminar Art People Representation – Reflecting the Lived Experience, took place in November 2018. The Seminar was part of the Explorers Project, a three year programme of inclusive cultural actions and partnerships nationally and internationally. The project will culminate in a year-long programme of exhibitions, installations and new cultural commissioning models that place neurodiverse communities, artists and makers at the heart of civic and cultural life.
The seminar took an innovative approach to discussing art and social care, moving away from didactic presentations and exploring collaboration, non-verbal communication, institutional empathy and arts practice. Extensive contributions from neurodiverse people throughout the building and across the whole day broke down barriers of understanding and gave honest, frank and often moving insights into real experiences.
“It was an amazing event – extremely well hosted, incredibly relevant and very thought provoking. I particularly appreciated the way the art was used to include everyone”
“I found it very interesting and came away with a sense of real inclusive collaboration”
“This was a truly thought provoking and inspiring event”
“A warm, celebratory event with integrity threaded through its core”
Image Credit: EXPLORERS Project Seminar, Project Art Works, 2018
The De La Warr Pavilion’s 2019 exhibition programme begins on February 9 with Still I Rise: Feminisms, Gender, Resistance, Act 2. Over 50 artists, designers, architects and archives are brought together in conversation across time and space to consider resistance from a gender perspective, spanning the 19th century to the present and beyond. Co-curated with Nottingham Contemporary where Act 1 opened last year, the exhibition is recalibrated for Act 2 to focus on architecture, design and the politics of space.
Act 2 includes: Fanny Adams, Jane Addams/Hull-House, Amina Ahmed, Alice Constance Austin, Xenobia Bailey, Glenn Belverio (Glennda Orgasm), Micha Cárdenas, CARYATIDS (Chicks in Architecture Refuse to Yield to Atavistic Thinking in Design and Society), Carolina Caycedo, Judy Chicago, Phyllis Christopher, Jackie Collins and Pat Garrett, Jamie Crewe, Blondell Cummings, Dyke Action Machine!, Feminist Land Art Retreat, Guo Fengyi, Carl Gent, Eduardo Gil, Kaveh Golestan, Gran Fury, Rachael House, Charlotte Johannesson, Jesse Jones, Corita Kent, Donna Kukama, Suzanne Lacy, Ellen Lesperance, Zoe Leonard, Sheila Levrant de Bretteville, Mary Lowndes, Matrix Feminist Design Co-operative, Louise Michel, Ad Minoliti, Okwui Okpokwasili, 0rphan Drift, Lucy Orta, Brenda Prince, Tabita Rezaire, Lala Rukh, Zorka Ságlová, See Red Women’s Workshop, Tai Shani, Terence Smith (Joan Jett Blakk), Linda Stupart, Ramaya Tegegne, Gille de Vlieg, VNS Matrix, Jala Wahid, Faith Wilding, Zadie Xa, Osías Yanov.
Opening the same day, Hayv Kahraman’s solo exhibition Displaced Choreographies brings together painting, drawing, sculpture and performance in an exploration of migrant consciousness. A recurrent female figure evokes shared histories between women, particularly women of colour, combining the artist’s personal history with “stolen” references including European Renaissance imagery, Iranian and Japanese miniature traditions.
The De La Warr Pavilion is the lead partner in OUTLANDS, the new national touring experimental music network; it will present a new commission, Ecstatic Material, by Keith Harrison and Beatrice Dillon on February 15.
Visit OUTLANDS Network for information.
Summer
The Chicago Imagists influenced some of the most important artists of the 20th century. Their first UK show in almost 40 years, How Chicago! Imagists 1960s & ’70s opens on June 15 and features paintings, objects, drawings, prints and ephemera, highlighting the artists’ individual styles, shared references and moments of connection. The show features 14 artists: Roger Brown, Sarah Canright, James Falconer, Ed Flood, Art Green, Philip Hanson, Gladys Nilsson, Jim Nutt, Ed Paschke, Christina Ramberg, Suellen Rocca, Barbara Rossi, Karl Wirsum and Ray Yoshida. Organised by Hayward Gallery Touring in collaboration with the De La Warr Pavilion and Goldsmiths Centre for Contemporary Art.
Our summer programme celebrates and interrogates the legacies of the Bauhaus in our First Floor Gallery. Events, workshops, performances and conversations will explore Bauhaus methodologies of “thinking through making,” and how these might continue to be useful. The programme is underpinned by a new commission by Lauren Godfrey, whose sculptures often take the form of domestic scaled objects, quasi-furniture and the almost-useful. In partnership with UCL.
Autumn
The autumn season begins on September 28 with a major new commission by Mikhail Karikis. It emerges from a year-long residency at Project Art Works, working with people who have complex support needs. Continuing his ongoing enquiry into social and political agency and the power of nonverbal communication, Karikis’ commission will respond to Project Art Works’ charter of rights for those with complex needs. Part of Project Art Works’ Explorers 2019 co-commission programme.
Occupying the First Floor Gallery will be an exhibition of new ceramic and tapestry works by Renee So, created during a residency at West Dean College of Arts and Conservation organised as an open call celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Bauhaus. So’s work often contains fictional personas, borrowed from ancient ritual masks, military and aristocratic portraiture. During her residency she will be paying particular attention to women of the Bauhaus.
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