We recently welcomed the children of Years 4 and 5 from Robert Blair School in a project called Shapeshifters at the Lethaby Gallery. Next month, BA Architecture students will present their designs for outdoor classrooms at the school as part of a live curriculum project - the latest in a story of collaboration between our two learning communities.
Shapeshifters was a day of workshops and evening performances led by the Lethaby Gallery Student Producers and gallery staff. Fifty children spent a day exploring the world with empathy and imagination through creative workshops. Working with scrap paper and materials sourced across the College, their final creations formed the set for an evening of public performances.
Drawing on their subject areas of architecture, graphic design and fashion communication, the students guided the children in sessions on costume design mythology, character creation and shapeshifting buildings through textiles, paper and collage as well as drawing and writing articulating identities. Leading a workshop on Shapeshifting Buildings, Amy introduced the children to her subject area of architecture, inspiring at least one child to express an interest for their future. Amy’s current project is called Creative Conviviality, and it is about restoring and retrofitting unoccupied buildings rather than demolishing them, combining housing with community arts spaces within these empty buildings.
“It was inspiring to see how children approached the activity. For us it’s about how you engage different kinds of publics with your work and we’re learning about the ways we might explain the ideas that exist within the building and finding different ways to communicate and engage - testing this out in a playful, simplified way.” Amy Teh
A mixed primary in the vibrant area of the Caledonian Road between Kings Cross and Angel, the school is distinctive in having an arts outcome embedded across the curriculum. Deputy Headteacher Sara Liney says this helps the children to be more creative and “more able to maintain a focus on habits of the mind” and developing skills like teamwork and persistence. The students observed how the activities could relate to other aspects of the curriculum, for instance, developing maths skills through cutting. Back at school, the children repeated the workshops with the rest of the school so that everyone could share the experience; Y4 and Y5 pupils led mixed age groups and supported younger children.
The workshops expanded my imagination and the students were kind and inspiring.” “They let me express my feelings and emotions and the students were passionate.” - Y5 pupils from Robert Blair School
“The students asked us questions which helped our creativity and imagination. We learnt teamwork and confidence to talk in big groups.”
“We were free to make creative choices.” - Y4 pupils from Robert Blair School
-
Photo: Niamh Hall
-
Photo: Niamh Hall
Outdoor classrooms
It’s not the first time our two communities have teamed up. An introductory visit in 2022 by CSM’s Spatial Practices Programme Director Alex Warnock-Smith has led to collaboration with BA Architecture Stage One Leader Carlotta Novella and her students – and they have been finding mutual areas of interest. Last Summer Carlotta and her students took over one of the underused spaces within the school, exhibiting work and running workshops with the kids. One of them explored food waste through the co-creation of a Vegetable Orchestra.
This year, a live student brief asks how do we learn in the city, with students working on how to design schools and spaces for learning. The brief is based on Robert Blair School and nine spaces on the site that are disused or underused. Looking at how we can expand the curriculum using these disused spaces, students have come up with designs for outdoor, open classrooms, each with a theme.
Practicing Space
Carlotta and students will visit the school to present their models and run workshops with the children responding to the designs, acting as the architects of the future. In turn, the school will visit Central Saint Martins this Spring as part of Central Saint Martins’ Practicing Space programme, and during RIBA visits to the course. Carlotta’s hope is to win funding for her and her students to build one of these classrooms.
The children’s introduction to the gallery was facilitated through Carlotta, who introduced Lethaby Creative Producer Mia Cormack to Headteacher Michelle Bahn during the workshops and exhibition at Robert Blair School last Summer
Student Producers
Amy Teh, MA Architecture, Tracy Zeng, BA Graphic Communication Design, Akira Etienne-Williams, BA Fashion Communication and Jack Oulton, BA Fashion Design. Working with Gallery staff and technicians, the Lethaby Gallery Student Producers feed into the gallery’s changing exhibition programme throughout the year.
With thanks for event support from Ellie Cunningham, MA Architecture, Holly Le Ver, MA Architecture and Pedro Resendez, BA Fine Art
-
Creative work: Robert Blair School Year 4 and 5. Photo: Jamie Johnson
-
Creative work: Robert Blair School Year 4 and 5. Photo: Jamie Johnson
More
-
Minh Le Pham
-
Image courtesy of UAL, Olivia Chester – Commons Ecologies
