It is expected to be a lively and exciting day at the Drum with large banners, drumming, drama, bird boxes and photography all being displayed. Performances will be starting at 10am and different groups will take to the stage throughout the day, until 3pm when local councillors and VIP’s will attend the event to view all of the work made by the children as part of Link Central.

We all move through our environment using favoured routes and stopping points. But our journeys through the ‘urban jungle’ are made easier by our familiarity of the trails and landmarks that we use to measure our progress and distance from home.

Landscape architects will call these routes ‘desire lines’ – urban planners will refer to circulation patterns and traffic movements. We called it – ‘Around the Houses’.

Pupils surveyed, drew and planned maps that reveal how they journey through their space from home to school and some of the challenges that they face along the way.

If you would like to find out more about Aston Maps, please visit the Aston Maps project website.

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Classes from Prince Albert, Aston Manor and Broadway schools were given the opportunity to work with the Pritam Rhythm Tribe to learn about different cultures and types of drumming and to create a piece which they performed on stage at The Drum as part of the showcase event.

The project will promote an appreciation and valuing of diverse drumming traditions, citizenship and a shared ownership of the city’s heritage. The journey will engage young people from diverse cultural heritages to learn about cultural diversity through world drumming traditions; create cohesion between the different communities in multi-cultural Birmingham and those living in Lozells, Aston and Newtown and show how the culture has evolved in the City, giving the young people, born and raised in Birmingham, a sense of ownership and belonging. Each school will form a world percussion ensemble who will create new pieces through workshops, leading to performances. The participants will experience working with professional, internationally acclaimed percussionists of the Pritam Rhythm Tribe, integrating culturally diverse traditions through global rhythms.

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Artists from Jestaminute Theatre worked with children from Prince Albert, William Cowper and St Georges schools to explore what it would be like to have an alien from another planet visit the area in which they live and what they would show them and what they think a stranger might think of the area in which they live. The children devised a final piece of drama which they performed on stage at The Drum at the final showcase event.

Three School Regeneration

With each school we used ‘Image Theatre’ (a drama technique that allows people to express their views visually), to get the children to create images of where they lived; we then got them to write a list of the bad things, the good things and what they would want to change.  Following this they split into small groups and each created a commercial to ‘sell’ their area.

First stop William Cowper School – Newtown ( Year 5)

They created powerful images, many of which were negative –tackling violence/ gangs/ bullying/ litter/ graffiti, which provoked lively discussion. Allowing for some of the boys just ‘showing off’, it was clear that violence was an issue firmly in everyone’s mind. In contrast to the previous negative images, their commercials largely showed positive impressions with a very clear messages saying -‘this (graffiti/litter/violence) should stop’.  We introduced the idea of a stranger (Argon the Alien), who wanted to find out about Earth and the discussions and adverts informed the creation of a final performance piece taking Argon on a journey through where they lived; with Argon acting as the catalyst to show that change was possible.

Click here to view the embedded video.

You can download the following PDF documents produced by Jestaminute to find out more about -

- ‘our journey’
- the views of the children about the good the bad and what they’d change
- comments made by staff and the children

Second stop St Georges – Newtown ( Year 5)

Again they came up with some powerful images which the group discussed in depth. One commercial really stood out - three boys seemed obsessed by the recent shooting of a young man.  I felt they needed to act this out to get it out of their heads.  Everyone was taken aback by their work; rather than show this in a macho way the boys showed great sensitivity and concentrated on the terrible effect this had had on the doctors and the family of the boy who had been shot, reflecting their shock and disgust at what had happened. The fact that they concentrated on the consequences of violence rather than glorifying it, was a very moving moment for the audience. Working with these children it became obvious, that using the Argon the Alien model probably wouldn’t work; however the use of the commercials led to the idea of using the medium of a news broadcast to share their ideas.

Click here to view the embedded video.

You can download the following PDF documents produced by Jestaminute to find out more about -

- ‘our journey’
- the views of the children about the good the bad and what they’d change
- comments made by staff and the children
- the news programme running order
- what Andy said

Last stop Prince Albert school – Aston ( Year 3)

Here it was clear that a visit from our friendly alien Argon would fit with this age group very well.  This group’s images showed it a much more positive view of their area than the pupils from the other two schools had had. This maybe because they are younger and have not been as exposed to some of the negative issues such as violence as their older counterparts. However, it soon became apparent that the school itself played an important part in these pupils lives both in and out of school time. Indeed, the school appeared to be viewed as an important place by the wider community. Here they largely wanted to show Argon the places that they enjoyed and were important to them, including their school and homes, the swimming pool, the park, Aston library and Aston Hall.

Click here to view the embedded video.

You can download the following PDF documents produced by Jestaminute to find out more about -

- ‘our journey’ a description as if written by the children about what they did
- a list of the things they showed Argon
- the views of the children about the good the bad and what they’d change
- some comments made by the children

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Children and young people from Prince Albert, Mayfield, Heathfield, Canterbury Cross, Birchfield Primary and St Georges schools took to the streets with photographer Dan Burwood to interview and take photographs of local residents that they met to record their thoughts, stories and aspirations of the area.

Based in detailed planning and consultation with schools, I will produce a series of ‘aspirational portraits’, photographs of local residents which include words about their hopes for their shared future. These will become a community mural, inaugurated at a celebratory event.

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Hamfisted! Worked with ten schools, both primary and secondary: Heathfield, Anglesey Street, Aston Manor, Canterbury Cross, St Francis, Birchfield Primary, King Edwards, William Cowper, Broadway and Lozells Junior & Infants to create a series of images that represent the changes and ambitions the young people of Lozells, Aston and Newtown want to see take place in the area.

HamFisted! will work in ten schools to create a series of images that will be printed on backpacks that will be given to each participating child and on bookmarks that will be distributed through city libraries.

These images will be digital photographs of large artworks created during day long art workshops in schools.

The focus of the art workshops will be the celebration of diversity and the participant’s aspirations for the future of their area of the city.

The art workshops will include simple printing and colourful collage.

Inspired by the Birmingham coat of arms each participant will create their own and print it.

Thinking about the positive changes that participants could make to their area participants will create colourful collages to represent their ideas.

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Click here to view the embedded video.

Project Gallery

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