scroll down to see all the education projects...

YouTurn

YouTurn art club aims to explore creative thinking through drawing, painting and printmaking.

A series of after-school art workshops for children who have a particular interest in learning painting and drawing skills took place at Campbell Works in the spring and summer term 2008.  Different aspects of visual language were explored including colour theory, composition and perspective with a focus on the idea of transcription, whereby existing artworks are used as the source material for creating new works.

The participants were selected from four local schools, prioritizing children who have already shown creative interest, or who are drawn to creative forms of visual expression, perhaps through experiencing difficulties with academic or linguistic approaches to learning. In addition to the workshops there was the opportunity for the participants to exhibit work in the YouTurn exhibition that ran in parallel to the Jake and Dinos Chapman Show, ' My Giant Colouring Book' at Campbell Works from 16th August - 14th September 2008.

Professional artists with lots of teaching experience ran the workshops.
Classes were held on Wednesdays from 3.45 - 6.00pm
Chapter 1 Feb 27th - April 3rd (ages 8 -11)
Chapter 2 April 23rd - June 4th (ages 11- 14)
Chapter 3 June 11th - July 16th (ages 14 -18)

Signs of the City

April to November 2008

www.citypix.net

Signs of the City is a 15-month European youth art project, which explores the sign systems of four cities Barcelona, Berlin, London and Sofia by drawing up a visual inventory.

Employing digital photography and new media, young people accompanied by professional artists investigate the signs of their cities and document their urban life. Results will be uploaded onto an innovative online image database: a contemporary archive, which is freely accessible and can be playfully interacted with.

Exhibitions in the participating cities take place in institutes of contemporary culture. Public transport space is also used for the presentation and communication of the project. Signs of the City culminates in an interdisciplinary conference, at which an evaluation carried out by a sociological institute is also presented.

Streets for People Project 2005 - 2007
Windus Walk N16

There will be an Arts Street Festival open to everyone on the 24th June 2007

Less a playground and more a walk through a story book, the Windus Streets for People project aims to reclaim the urban spaces existing between architecture to create new opportunities for play and leisure.

The project has been an ambitious scheme involving 2 artists, hundreds of residents, 4 contractors, the London borough of Hackney, Transport for London , and a steering group of 10 residents from Cazenove Area Action Group.

The aim was to create a new street environment for the residents of the Cazenove Ward in N16, Hackney. The area had been littered with rubbish, generally neglected and plagued by cars rat-running through the residential streets.The project was initially instigated by a residents group CAAG, with funding from TfL. Working with the LBHackney the area has been transformed by narrowing roads at strategic points, creating shared surfaces and building new paved spaces for play.

In the early stages, artists Neil Taylor and Harriet Murray from Campbell Works proposed  the  inclusion  of artwork within the project to encourage a pedestrian focus within the scheme.  This allowed opportunities to create social meeting places and child centred play areas at many locations, thereby shifting the focus and priority away from the car user. From the outset Campbell Works adopted an approach that would enable local resident involvement in the creation of content for the artwork. The artists began by closing the roads, putting up a marquee and running art workshops for 250 local people, to generate images and ideas for the scheme. Through close discussions with the residents group, Campbell Works then project managed the planting of  30 trees, the sourcing and positioning of 36 large scottish boulders, designing texturered coloured (spraygrip) surfaces for 18 road junctions and the production of 117 amazing granite artworks and bespoke carved seating.

In an area as culturally diverse and ethnically mixed as the Cazenove Ward,  the creative aspects of the Windus Streets for People scheme have been ground breaking and unique in providing an opportunity for generating ‘local shared ownership’ and community pride..

All artwork, designs and processes copyright Campbell Works. The concepts and designs relating to the Windus Streets for People Project must not be duplicated in another location  by another party without prior consent from Campbell Works

Ravensbourne

In May 2004 we ran a joint project with Ravensbourne College of Art, to develop and assess proposals by 30 students from the interior design course. The remit having been, to use the ground floor and basement shells of Campbell Works as a setting for a dual purpose night club and children's creche.

Waltham Forest FE College

To accompany the installation Within these Walls a joint project was created with the Media Department at Waltham Forest FE College to show 40 students a range of films, looking at the
construction of the Israeli ‘apartheid wall’. By showing films that are on the one hand highly edited propaganda, alongside unedited camcorder documentaries / diaries, important issues around mediation and the role and remits of the media can be explored.

click image to access Saturday Art Class site

The saturday art classes were begun in May 2000 to encourage local children in our neighbourhood who were vandalising cars and property to be creative rather than destructive. Taking the premise, that being destructive is a form of creativity, we decided to offer these children the opportunity to explore and re-direct this energy through art.

The classes were run in an informal way, designed specifically to encourage those who may be intimidated by more conventional forms of education.
This allowed everyone to explore there own creativity and gain a greater awareness and understanding of both themselves and the community in which they live. These classes were given free at source, as it was felt important not to create any obstacles for the children.

Caws of Art provided the materials, the classroom space, and the use of equipment, while the teaching was donated by the participating artist.
We are now looking at various forms of funding to enable the future development of these classes.

Darkroom

Caws of art has developed a purpose built mobile dark room that can be set up almost anywhere. In this dark mysterious space we can expose participants to the amazing world of photography. For young children entering into this dark world that they have watched being constructed, is excitement enough. Once in the tent, time is allowed for eyes to adjust before the lights are dimmed to the warm glow of a photographic red light. All the pictures are made in this semi darkness and only seen in the light when all the processing is complete. The transition from this dark space that becomes comforting in its intimacy is shattered as
we re-enter the world outside, into the light . It is a extremely
powerful experience for all ages. Watching an image emerge before your eyes is always truly magical.

In spring 2002 Caws of Art took their travelling darkroom on tour round five nursery and primary schools in Hackney. Creating and installing five photographic murals for Muslim, Turkish and Jewish communities.

Project commissioned by Surestart. Stamford Hill / Clapton

The story of the missing teeth was made, written and performed by children from Jubilee Primary school.

Working in our classroom for a whole term this after school club enabled children to first make puppets using polystyrene and felt. The children were then encouraged to create characters for the puppets by inventing voices and chatting informally while in character. Notes were taken by the artists running the project, which with the childrens guidance were formatted into a loose script. Through a repeated process of acting out these notes the full script was developed.

We believe that through practical exploration of creative ideas children learn many vital life skills that aid the individuals independence. The after school club with its unique range of ages and abilities enables all participants the opportunity within the sessions to help some one less able than themselves, which is a long and enduring skill to gain