Connecting with kids

It is always an honour to be asked by our Regional Art Gallery, lovingly known as TRAG to pop in and host a workshop. The prompt for this session was 'fragments', based on the current exhibition on display.  I immediately knew why they picked me for this, my whole practice explores fragmentation. For me fragmentation goes hand in hand with the habit of collecting.  In a nutshell the process of building a collection is a desire to build a complete and indepth picture through the gathering of smaller pieces: fragments.

Exploring this methology and with children is an interesting and philosophical one. It often feels backwards at the beginning, somewhat odd.  When we are starting a new work we often feel the pressure to 'know' the outcome.  'What's the plan?' is something that I often hear in a classroom setting. In truth, for some that makes sense that is the natural order, to plan out the whole process in your mind before marks even hit the page. For others knowing the ending before the beginning feels like trying to squeeze orange juice from an apple. Sometimes the story comes together as the journey unfolds. Using this methology we start collecting the pieces either physically or visually, waiting for the pieces to allign in a way that feels organic, it is the process informing the product.

Working with the kids in the workshop I wanted to break the workshop in half, two separate pieces that would come together. This felt the most organic way to trigger the process of fragmentation and collection. Through this there were lots of discussion and questions always moving back and fourth bewteen what has been, what is happening and where they are going. Some students playing with representational pieces and others emotional abstraction. It was such a priviledge to watch students play with these really complex concepts and seeing how through the same initial prompt, available resources and set tasks how quickly each of their individual narratives evolved. 
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It was a fun experience and the kids really created some interesting marks along the way. It was a day of creative play and honestly they could have sat there for another hour or two in that deep space of creative discovery.