Aston Maps

Artists from CAN-UK worked with young people from 3 schools; Anglesey Street, Prince Albert and Aston Manor, to explore their local area by recording landmarks and then using this information to create an interactive virtual board game as well as their own map games.

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.

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Beating Drums for Brum’s Heritage

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. Read more about this project »

Argon the Alien

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.

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Shared Future Faces

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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Print It Project

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.

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Hopes and Dreams

Georges Park South Lozells This project has involved working with a number of local schools which surround Georges Park. Anglesey, St Francis, Lozells and Mayfield have all participated. The students have mapped the park, created a model to show improvements, constructed funky bird boxes, inspired from the ‘vision Lozells’ briefing and eco housing. The bird boxes will form a sculpture trail around the park and will be installed in April. Schools will then monitor the boxes to see which birds use them. Planet Art have worked with over 200 students. Read more about this project »