Saturday 15th May, 11am
Tricycle Cinema
269 Kilburn High Road
London NW6 7JR

Residents living on The Alexandra and Ainsworth Estate (commonly known as Rowley Way) have seen their landmark Grade II* listed estate depicted on film and TV for years, often incorrectly as a crime-ridden hell-hole. As well as film crews the estate is a favourite among architects who come from all over the world to photograph and write about it.

Residents decided to make their own film exploring the ideas behind the design of the estate and in the process interviewed neighbours aged 3 to 103 as well as the architect who designed the estate and others involved in it’s construction.

This is your chance to get under the skin of the Estate, beyond the architecture students, beyond the reputation, beyond The Bill.

A Q&A will follow the screening with filmmakers and the architect, Neave Brown.

Find out more here: www.rowleyway.org.uk

Meet with daisi and  John Whitehead, John Bradford, Simon Ovens and Ed Tomlin from South Dartmoor Community College in Ashburton. We ran through some potential ideas that could be realised by the end of the summer term. Discussing how using creativity to make the local area and issues of society and citizenship come alive for young people, and how we can establish new and lasting connections between schools and their communities.

Two possible projects might happen. One would be to discover a new understanding of our past, present and future through research, conversation and survey’s comparing and contrasting opinions of those living and working in the region. This project combines art, history and anthropology for an investigative look at people, places, and stories and how they contribute to our collective understanding of who we are. The children will become detectives, searching out clues to the town’s past and present.

Together we will form a production team and produce a newspaper. Children take on roles, which they have to apply for. Editor, reporter, copywriter, photographer, production manager, art editor, illustrator, sound editor, web input.

We will document the environment using writing, sound and photography. We will then edit our research and combine this with autographical skills to create our newspaper.

The idea for The School Looks Around originated from General Public Agency’s rediscovery of the 1948 book, which promoted the idea of the local survey as an adventurous and open-ended process, a “voyage of discovery into the life, history and organisation of the locality”. “The local survey can help to bring the individual into sympathy with his/her surroundings, not passively, but as an active unit”. The book is amazingly contemporary in its holistic consideration of the environment and in empowering young people to protect and influence their environment.

The aim of the original surveys was to make the local area and issues of society and citizenship come alive for children, whilst establishing new and lasting connections between schools and their communities.

The School Looks Around is a one-year programme of environmental surveys carried out by young people and directed towards capturing the realities of contemporary urban and rural life in Britain. The programme will run over one year in four different secondary schools – two in an urban context and two in a rural context – with the aim of developing a national model. It will be galvanised by significant new partnerships between the schools, cultural institutions and library services. The findings of the action-research will form a usable archive resource, to be housed either within the school or within a local history archive.

The project investigated how most people use maps for directions, but do they show how you use a space? Do they show where you work, play, eat and hang out?

Maps were compared to various contemporary artists interpretation of walking through the landscape. The group worked cooperatively, sharing experience, while they investigated paths around town, recording their experiences using drawing, photography, sound recording, writing and GPS (Global Positioning System).

Google Earth_Placemark (saved as a KMZ file). You will need the free application Google Earth on your machine, if you launch this file you will be able to follow the walk we took and the photos we took to illustrate our walk. The group spent some time discussing appropriate titles for each photograph.

Aspects of the walk are also posted onto Google maps:  tinyurl.com/y8wxbqr

I was supported by Catherine Simmonds, education coordinator at Sherborne House Arts (SHA), on this project. Our research was combined to create a stimulating exhibition at Sherborne House Arts opening on the 9th October. An aspect of the work will also by posted onto the internet for viewing in Google earth (see below).

This project was developed by my working with SHA. The original idea was to use art to inspire people to appreciate the paths in their town.As I believe that informal community memory and formal historical reflection are key components for engaged cultural identity, and that such identity is essential for community empowerment and self-determination.

Catherine added: “We wanted to show how creative activity can become a valued and shared part of community life, whilst exploring contemporary art production; map making; new technology; and creative practice.”

This project has been funded by Sherborne Town Council, West Dorset District Council and Arts Council England. The project has been awarded the ‘Inspire Mark’ in recognition of its official 2012 Olympic status.

Foreland sound walk

Painting made up of each participant memory of the walk we took.

Slide show, including the above soundtrack, of the photos we all selected of the walk.

Click here to view the embedded video.