IOE student contributes to landmark art project

*From the 2023/2024 academic year onwards, this degree has been renamed the Art Education, Culture and Practice MA

England’s Creative Coast is a landmark project between seven arts organisations (Cement Fields, Creative Folkestone, De La Warr Pavilion, Hastings Contemporary, Metal, Towner Eastbourne, and Turner Contemporary) to create a new outdoor cultural experience that connects art with landscape and local stories with global perspectives.

As part of this, Amy worked with young people from Eastbourne’s YMCA LGBTQ+ group. The workshops saw people come together on Zoom to talk about objects they were most connected to as well as their relationships with local history. In particular, the workshop looked at some Anglo-Saxon grave finds discovered in an archaeological dig on St Anne’s Hill, Eastbourne in 1997.

The group remodelled their objects in plasticine, paper and tape, and played around with experimental drawing and waste mould casting with clay and plaster. Amy then used the ideas, shapes, forms and values to inform design elements for a series of sculptural forms. These will be used as geocaches, objects as part of a treasure hunt for people, placed along the coast. The Art Geotour is part of England’s Creative Coast, alongside the 'Waterfronts' project curated by Tamsin Dillon, which presents seven new outdoor artworks from internationally acclaimed artists stretching over 1400km of shoreline from the South Downs to the Thames Estuary.

In addition to making objects, the group also used Zoom Whiteboard to collaboratively draw their own animal salads, which is an Anglo-Saxon design technique that incorporates a mixture of animals’ limbs and faces.

Each member chose their own symbolic animal and thought of their own 2021 values, influenced by the challenges of lockdown and inspired by Anglo-Saxon heroic values. These special values included care, thoughtfulness, community, hope, patience, protection, equality, respect and trust. The group then created symbols and chose colours for the ones that resonated with them the most.

Amy said: “These workshops were an opportunity to meet with a local group and connect in a time of physical distance during lockdown. Through conversation, experimenting with making and drawing, we shared our objects, experiences, and stories that connected each of us to Eastbourne. Conversations with the young people helped me gain a unique insight into the local area and their evolving relationship with it. They have been integral in developing the design and ideas; generously allowing us to incorporate elements from their objects, drawings and suggestions for the geocaches.”

England’s Creative Coast Geocache Art Tour opened on 29 May and runs until 12 November 2021.

Links

• Amy Leung England’s Creative Coast Commission
• Find out more about the Geocache Art Tour (England’s Creative Coast)
• Art Education, Culture and Practice MA
• Department of Culture, Communication and Media

Images

Images: Thierry Bal, kindly supplied by Towner Eastbourne.