Programme 5: Nathan Coley – Project based artwork

Activities

Programme 5 activities

Before viewing
Engage children in a discussion about gathering information. Ask the following questions:

• What is research? (investigation to gather or discover facts that give us a greater understanding of a subject and enables us to discover new ways to think about a subject)
• What form does it take? (conversations, visits, books, photographs, video clips, newspaper articles, internet pages)
• Where can we get it? (asking questions at meetings, libraries, archives, the internet)
• What is the function of research? (investigation, information, knowledge, understanding) Language development

  Ensure that the children have an understanding of the following artistic vocabulary and key terms:

• Project-based: work driven by commissions rather than making work in the studio
• Research: investigations made and information found in and around locations
• Commission: being asked to react to a set of circumstances
• Audience: those who see or hear about the artwork
• Architecture: buildings with meaning

  After viewing

  Ask pupils to think about how to record information and about how they would present it to give someone an understanding of the subject, or to highlight something that was not previously known which others would find interesting. This exercise requires the children to collect information from a school trip eg to the zoo, and then present the information to the class. The work could also be a recorded conversation on the bus on the way home.

  The list below can be applied to work made from any subject or location. Consider making the work in the location instead of bringing material back to the class.

• Select a subject or location
• Plan the project, considering: who, what, where, why and when
• Look for information. Is there anything unusual or special about the subject or location that they would like to communicate? In a zoo, for example, this could be a special breeding policy, a new animal, or animal welfare issues.
• Call ahead and arrange a meeting with someone relevant to the subject eg a Zoo Keeper
• Determine what materials will be required to record information, eg: pencils, sketchbook, camera, tape recorder, sample bottles, sealable plastic bags, blotting paper
• Collect all relevant information eg: sound recordings of animals, samples of environment, drawings, taped conversations, photographs, smells – does the Zoo have a laboratory with samples of various liquids such as what is put in the pools?
• Record first impressions of the location. This will generally be the simplest way to translate the location or subject to another person, and then further investigation and research will make the project unique
• On return to school, choose to investigate an area of interest by using the library or making telephone calls
• Present findings to the class. Try to keep away from making a painting or a drawing. You are limited only by your imagination.

  Examples:
  

• Play the class a taped narration of the topic that includes animal noises and bits of conversations
• Make a smelly bookmark from blotting paper adding a collected smell. This could be kept in a small re-sealable bag and placed inside a relevant book from the library. Anyone reading the book will be transported to the zoo instantly when they open the bag
• Construct one of the enclosures. For example, the penguin area at London Zoo, which was designed by Russian architect Berthold Lubetkin in 1934 Materials needed:
  
• cardboard
• pens
• craft knives
• camera
• sketchbook
• blotting paper
• small re-sealable plastic bags
• tape recorder with microphone
• blank tapes