Local school hop down to UEA for hare project
By: News Archive
Artist educators from The Sainsbury Centre of Visual Arts (SCVA) are working with pupils at West Earlham Infant and Nursery School to design University of East Anglia’s (UEA) hare for the GoGoHares trail.
The artist educators have worked with the children, aged five to seven, to come up with ideas for the design based on maps of the local area, to explore how the animals experience their environment when moving and interacting.
The finished hare will eventually be on display at SCVA as part of both the city trail, of 50 hares, and the 25-hare county trail from 24 June.
The theme of maps emerged from early conversations between artist educators Ian Brownlie and Kaitlin Ferguson, during which they realised that they both used maps in their practice, and were both interested in people’s relationship with landscape, both urban and natural.
“We wanted to work with West Earlham Infant and Nursery School on this project because, while lots of schools come on educational visits to SCVA, only a small number are within walking distance,” said Becca Sturgess, School and Outreach Programme Coordinator at SCVA.
“The project is a great opportunity to involve local children and their families, inspiring them to visit us regularly.”
The children visited SCVA for the first time in September 2017, to explore the galleries and discover animal-inspired artwork, notably the miniature bronze Roman Hare which is over 2000 years old and could be seen as ‘the oldest hare on the trail’. They met Ian and Kaitlin, who ran special workshops in the SCVA Learning Studio, and at their school.
“We explored the theme in various different ways. The children had lots of opportunities to draw, and work with a variety of art materials, such as clay, plasticine, and printing. We also included activities based on movement, music, memory, and vocabulary development,” said Becca.
“This work will feed into the final hare design, we will use the drawings, models and sculptures made by the children as inspiration and will reinterpret them when we paint the hare.” said Ian.
Kaitlin added: “It’s been great to work with the children over several sessions. You can see how much they are enjoying themselves, and I hope that they carry on being creative and making amazing artwork of their own.”
The children will be able to see the artists paint the final designs on the hares at the school, and their work will be displayed alongside the hare when the trail launches in SCVA in the summer.
After people have had chance to enjoy the trail, the 50 city hares will be auctioned off to raise money for Break, while the county ‘Moongazer’ hares will remain as permanent features, with UEA’s hare taking up residence on campus.
Martin Green, GoGoHares and Break Charity Fundraising Manager, said: “The GoGoHares team at Break are thrilled at this fantastic collaboration between UEA, SCVA and West Earlham Infant and Nursery School.
“Using the interest and enthusiasm of the GoGoHares trail to stimulate learning and creativity for young people in such a variety of ways, is exactly the sort of thing we hoped would happen.”
For more information about the GoGoHares trail, click here.
To find out more about The Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, click here.
Click here for more information about the charity Break.
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