'the way we are'

Following up from my previous blog entry in December my fascination with the skull has flourished. Due to the generosity of the loan of a real human school from the art department of a school in Portsmouth I've been able to use this very special resource for some of my recent projects.
Working with pupils from Carisbrooke High School on the Isle of Wight we created a stunning exhibition in the Learning Curve Gallery at Quay Arts entitled 'the way we are'. This exhibition will be finishing this Saturday 1st May - so see it while you can - apologies for the late post!

The project evolved over four half day sessions in school and three whole days in the gallery. School sessions concentrated on developing ideas about identity and the duality of our physical being and our intangible personality. Following sessions introduced 3D processes new to the students including clay work and working with soft basketry and textile techniques.
In the gallery the reality of the challenge became apparent once everyone realised the amount of work to be done within the three day installation slot. Purposefully I did not allow the students to fall back on the security of the relatively modest pieces made in school but instead encouraged them to develop new large scale works that responded to the scale of the gallery space, utilised their new found 3D techniques and drew on their photographic skills.

Ripped fragments of textiles and carefully arranged bundles of grass wrapped in knitting wool embroider the outlines and forms of the human skull and an image of one of the pupils fingerprints. The physical human presence is combined with the individual makers mark.

More of the process and exhibition can be seen in my flickr gallery: 'the way we are' and I would like to congratulate all those enthusiastic involved in this project who achieved so much.