I started a new project yesterday working at St Saviours Infant School in Bath for 5x5x5=creativity. Its a residency again but with a difference, this time I am working in partnership with Forest School Leaders as opposed to teachers. I’m working with Annie from Bath Forest School and Tina, who is taking over as Forest School coordinator at the school later this year.

As with all my 5x5x5=creativity work, the themes and interests of the children will emerge over time – we have 7 weeks working with one Year 1 class and then 5 weeks working with the other.

I and my colleagues are looking at how we can use the resources and spaces set up for Forest School, and the general ethos of this method of learning in the outdoors, combined with a creative, child-led approach, where we take our lead from the children, documenting their investigations and play with notes and photos, and then providing for their observed interests.

Yesterday we began with simple introductions to ourselves, to the materials and tools, and then invited the children to start by building shelters and dens with their friends.

It was up to them how and where they built them, and with who, and they were given permission to move on into other ways of making, and exploring the local environment (the school’s ‘Willow Garden’), when they were ready.

The result was a small hamlet of dens and houses, linking together and with trees, big ones to get in and play with ‘fires’, smaller ones for badgers or to heat pine cones, together with pulley systems, coloured wool decoration and places to store tools. There was also a fascination with the black beetles that lived under the log seating circle, a red ant’s nest and worms – “Its a Daddy worm, its big and strong”.

If you are interested in joining our conversations on how art can respond to the ecological and social challenges of our time, please join the new Facebook Group for The Great Turning Artful Inquiry

See here for a post written previously, inviting you to become involved in this collaborative creative response to The Great Turning, the Personal Guidelines for which are  set out here by Joanna Macy.

Kathy Mead Skerritt  ‘I wonder about my little twinner bodies. I wonder how they might come to be and to know. What will be the form of their presence? How will they recognize themselves? What will I see, reflected, in their soon-to-be infilled faces? What is my responsibility for their coming into (and unto) themselves, for their awakening to their raw little bodhisattva bodies flush against the”thingness” of “above” and “below”? Such an obligation, this midwifery of possibility…’

I posted on here before about a fledgling project where I was making cloth figures for friends and colleagues to explore our shared interests as artists, in the relationship between art, embodied/artful learning and ecology, and our more individual focuses on story, space, spirituality, materials, travel, musicals… We wanted to make new work in community with each other, to explore our individual research strands, and the way that they weave, intertwine and support each other.

The following images and quotes are taken from a Facebook group that we use to share our ongoing process of investigation and dialogue, through the vehicle of our sets of ‘Blank Twins’ (one cloth figure each became two).

I was going to try and map the journey that our work together has taken chronologically, but its been a very rich and winding one, so I’ll leave you with some of the fragments of our journey so far, in order that you can find your own way through.

Kathy Mead Skerritt Today, I’m liking “arboreous” and “arborescence”…1. arboreal, arboreous, tree-living
(inhabiting or frequenting trees; “arboreal apes”)… 2. arboraceous, arboreous, woodsy, woody
(abounding in trees; “an arboreous landscape”; “violets in woodsy shady spots”; “a woody area near the highway”)

James Aldridge Arboraceous is a lovely word. I’d like to be described as arboraceous. Dendroidal too… I can visualise an image of roots growing into a brain, or of a body putting down roots… a symbiotic relationship between trees and people.

Jonathan Mansfield Thanks Kathy. I love the idea of the ‘seam’ between Land and Water – it’s a very spiritual notion (particularly during the Iron Age in Europe, that meeting of elements produces all manner of wonder: the Lady of the Lake is a good example)

James Aldridge Love these Kathy, remind me of the cocoons of Caddis Fly Larvae – do you get them in the US? They gather objects/materials from where they live and stick them together around their bodies…

Chris Seeley …went walking for a bit in the village. Picked up more wool, some down and rabbit fur with fox spit on it for the twin.

Kathy Mead Skerritt Jonathan, the birds are fabulous! I wonder, as we follow the maps of our bodies or those of the more-than-humans, perhaps we will re-member that there is no difference between the planetary body and all the living form “upon” it…I like the idea of mapping my body visually in some manner relative to the ecosystems with which I engage. For instance, in terms of the practice of phenomenology – knowing a thing from IN it and AS it rather than “objectively” …hmmmm…I may run with this…THANKS, JONATHAN!

James Aldridge Kept one back to do something else to, haven’t quite decided what yet, like the idea of a contrast…
Chris Seeley Writing on the body… Writing (about) the body
Chris Seeley This is still my favourite twins picture so far

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Next week sees a sharing of images and artwork at the Forest Arts Centre in New Milton, from the Creating Culture project, set up by Laura Bullivant of the St Barbe Museum, with her Hampshire Museums and Arts Service colleagues.

Laura and I have worked together many times before in her previous incarnation as Learning and Outreach Officer for the Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum.

This project was created by adapting a model that Laura and I developed at Salisbury Museum, where we worked on a series of projects together, using creative approaches to learning with family groups, in the rural areas surrounding Salisbury.

Creating Culture has been about working with schools as opposed to families, but has used a similarly child-led approach, in that sessions were devised and structured to give the children involved as much ownership as possible.

The children had free choice over what they chose to record and talk about on their museum visits, and we used our observations of them to choose objects from the museum handling collections, and a range of materials, to provide for them back at school when Laura, myself and volunteers paid a return visit. `

We worked with four schools and two museums – St Barbe Museum and Art Gallery in Lymington, and The Redhouse Museum in Christchurch. Children were from Infant, Junior and Primary Schools, ranging from Reception to Year 5/6. Each group of children visited one museum and had one return visit in order to reflect on their experiences, and to develop their ideas and interests further, through discussion, handling and making.

Its a new approach for the two Museums, and one that Laura is keen to embed in her work with schools at St Barbe, and it has been a wonderful project to work on, seeing the children exploring, sharing, recording, discussing, remembering and interpreting their experiences individually and as a group, with energy, enthusiasm and a great deal of creative integrity.

I was in Denmark for a few days last week, invited to contribute to a round-table seminar on The Pedagogy of Education for Environmental Sustainability. It was organised by Karen Blincoe of ICIS, and Anneliese Ryberg of Ducks in a Row, who are looking to set up a Folk High School which specialises in this area of learning.

My own contribution to the event, which was spread over two days, was to share my approach to working in a creative ways with both children and adults, responding to our sensory and imaginative relationship to our local environment. I chose to talk about my work with children as I wanted to stress what I believe we can learn about the needs and potential of adults in education, when we view human development and learning as a continuum, rather than chopping it up into fairly arbitrary sections.

I wanted to share my understanding of how babies are born inherently creative, and can be supported to use their bodies and imaginations, to explore and make sense of their place in a more than human world, as they grow and develop, and that we as adults can too

In other words, what I was asking and exploring was, what is it as adults that stops us from experiencing ourselves as continuous with the more-than-human world, as being embedded within it and learning from that perceptual position as embodied individuals? And what can an embodied, creative, place-based approach to learning offer adults, as well as children, in terms of their personal and social development and ecological learning?

Its a very big subject and one that others at the seminar explored in different but very much related ways. Chris Seeley looked at Artful Knowing in Higher Education and Organisational Development, Julie Richardson and Patricia Shaw shared the thinking and practice behind the development of an Holistic Science MSc at Schumacher College in Devon, and Mel Risebrow gave a very heartfelt presentation on the value of ‘whole-hearted’ engagement for individuals and their communities, inspired partly by his previous role as Deputy Director of Schumacher College.

From Denmark, Jepper Laessoe explored (amongst many other layers) the potential of appropriately educated Danish citizens as ‘Change Agents’ within society, and Ditlev Nissen the development of, and dissemination of learning from, the Danish Ecovillage movement.

It was a very rich couple of days with explorations of a very practical, but also a very philosophical and spiritual nature, and an opportunity to meet and share with people that are carrying out really important work in the UK, Denmark and Internationally. It was also a great opportunity to explore many of these areas in more depth with my friend and traveling companion Chris Seeley, and to take in the architecture, food and wider culture of the Danish land and people.

I loved the way that the Louisiana Gallery was perched as an interconnecting series of rooms, on land looking out over the sea, and how the central court of the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek offered a palm-fronded oasis from the relative hustle and bustle of central Copenhagen.

When you are in an unfamiliar place the richness of your sensory experience can be so vivid, the crumbled texture of walls, the ‘heft’ and soft depth of a fresh (Danish) pastry. Its all about paying attention to your sensory, intuitive and felt experiences and using these to make sense of the world, with a little sprinkling of facts and figures as and when they are appropriate.

I’ve just set up a new Facebook page for Creative Ecology, to share relevant links, articles, images and other sources of inspiration and information.

Please visit www.facebook.com/creativeecology and ‘Like’ to stay connected

Its been a while since I’ve been able to blog in any depth and lots has been happening, so here’s a brief catch up, with more in depth posts to come along later.

My work with the children of St Saviours Infant School in Bath, continues to excite, challenge and test me as I try to grasp what they are telling me they need from the experience, and provide a safe space for them all to explore that.

Recent work with families at Bemerton Heath in Salisbury gave me a chance to support them to make wearable work together at the Community Centre, responding to Salisbury Museum‘s new exhibition on Stone Age life.

I’ve also just got back from a session with a lovely group of artists, teachers, childminders and museum education officers in Cheam, south London, working for the Borough of Sutton and EarlyArts, exploring the role of photography and other methods of documenting as tools for creatively responding to place.

So what connects all these? Well apart from me, its that they are all about offering up opportunities for creative dialogue between people and places. It’s all about exploring who we are individually and as communities, how we relate to our past and how we can build a better future.

Which brings me on to an event to which I’m contributing next week at the ICIS centre in Denmark, on the pedagogy of education for sustainability. What are the different ways in which we can teach, and people can learn about, sustainability? How can we offer experiences for people to learn about their relationship with the world that are irresistable, that are relevant to who they are and how they live their lives on a daily basis, and which might cause them to question their perception of, and behaviour towards, the world around them?

There’s also the Body Project (taster below), and Creating Culture, a great project I’ve been running with the Hampshire Museums and Arts Services, but I think they deserve a bit more space and time, so more to come on those in their own posts…

I’ve finally got internet access again, hurray!

Lots more to come but for now here is a call-out for artful responses to, and inquiry into, The Great Turning, co-curated by myself, Chris Seeley and Kathy Skerritt -

The Great Turning Artful Inquiry is a global, artistic co-inquiry into the five Personal Guidelines for The Great Turning explicated by Buddhist scholar and activist Joanna Macy (www.joannamacy.net). This project accompanies the expected 2013 publication of the book The Great Turning, a selection of essays edited by Peter Reason and Melanie Newman; Vala Publishing Cooperative, publishers (UK). There will be a section in the book devoted to the artistic responses.

WHO: Artists with an interest in collaborative practice and ecological and social restoration.

WHAT: The project is collaborative and there are no prizes, fees, charges, required experience, or territorial restrictions. Submissions as noted above will be curated, becoming part of book launching events and presented in both online and print formats to stimulate a widening dialogue. Photographic images of accepted artwork will inform and be included in the development and distribution of an open-source portfolio of images and questions, intended to guide communities in designing and engaging in local variants of the inquiry. Some but not all accepted pieces may be chosen to be exhibited at book launching events. In general, most pieces will be photographically exhibited regardless of medium.

WHEN: Submissions by June 1, 2012; selections announced by September 1, 2012; delivery of artwork by December 31, 2012; book launching/exhibitions throughout 2013 ending November 30, 2013.

APPLY: Email the address below for introductory letter and participation guidelines.

CONTACT: blank.twins@hotmail.com

DEADLINE: June 1, 2012

Six stitched bodies ready to be stuffed/filled with the material of the artist’s choice and to interact with and record their local environment in some way… really excited about sending them out, letting go and seeing what happens!