'Arrival'
This was a fantastic Bow Arts project lead by artist Ania Bas, assisted by myself. We spent a week with year 5 and 6 children at Harbinger Primary School to ambitiously transform their classrooms into new worlds with their own set of customs and values.
The project was based on Shaun Tan’s visually epic, emotive graphic novel The Arrival. The book powerfully explores the concept of what it’s like to arrive in a new and unfamiliar place, visually exploring issue surrounding displacement and migration.
With their teachers children explored the themes within the book preparing for our project, in which they were to think about concepts of rights and responsibilities and values the citizens would bring to their new worlds. Students concluded that ‘love’, ‘respect’, ‘empathy’ and ‘education ‘were if paramount importance.
Ania worked with the classes to discuss and debate their values, thinking about how these would be represented visually and through performance. The groups created suit cases, paper hats, large scale drawings, new languages and greetings among other things.
While all this was going on I worked collaboratively with small group of children to transform their classrooms into new worlds. We created new environments by building ambitious installations using a wide range of materials.
At the end of the week, the two classes visited the others’ world to experience its values and the ‘induction’. On arrival students were greeted, scanned by a giant lollipop, crawling through tunnels, meeting the Ghost Panther and given tours from friendly locals in a new language. Classes from across the school and parents were later invited to visit the created worlds.
‘I think that in 20 years’ time all of these children will remember the project. It was magical and that was exactly what we were hoping for. If it inspires their writing, great - but actually it made them really excited to come to school. That’s how it should be!’ Yr 5/6 teacher
‘I think this was the best thing the school has ever done. Thank you!!’
‘I have had the best time in this class. It was amazing. It's really nice speaking to classmates that you don't really talk to and I really enjoyed it!’
The project was based on Shaun Tan’s visually epic, emotive graphic novel The Arrival. The book powerfully explores the concept of what it’s like to arrive in a new and unfamiliar place, visually exploring issue surrounding displacement and migration.
With their teachers children explored the themes within the book preparing for our project, in which they were to think about concepts of rights and responsibilities and values the citizens would bring to their new worlds. Students concluded that ‘love’, ‘respect’, ‘empathy’ and ‘education ‘were if paramount importance.
Ania worked with the classes to discuss and debate their values, thinking about how these would be represented visually and through performance. The groups created suit cases, paper hats, large scale drawings, new languages and greetings among other things.
While all this was going on I worked collaboratively with small group of children to transform their classrooms into new worlds. We created new environments by building ambitious installations using a wide range of materials.
At the end of the week, the two classes visited the others’ world to experience its values and the ‘induction’. On arrival students were greeted, scanned by a giant lollipop, crawling through tunnels, meeting the Ghost Panther and given tours from friendly locals in a new language. Classes from across the school and parents were later invited to visit the created worlds.
‘I think that in 20 years’ time all of these children will remember the project. It was magical and that was exactly what we were hoping for. If it inspires their writing, great - but actually it made them really excited to come to school. That’s how it should be!’ Yr 5/6 teacher
‘I think this was the best thing the school has ever done. Thank you!!’
‘I have had the best time in this class. It was amazing. It's really nice speaking to classmates that you don't really talk to and I really enjoyed it!’