The Contemporary Art of Collaboration

The Contemporary Art of CollaborationSheridan Horn

Predetermined assessment criteria and target levels threaten to constrain and limit teachers’ desire to provide a balanced and innovative curric-ulum for their pupils. Through the collaborative production of annual installations, the fine art department at Trinity Catholic School has attempted to confound the effects of a compre-hensive school’s limitations. These installations allow hundreds of participants of all ages to collaborate in a partnership ethos exploring contemporary issues and modes of practice and enable both pupils and teachers to engage with art as a creative process.

The installation is used as a gallery resource centre both in-house and by the local community. The recent installation entitled ‘Laboratories’, analysing links between art and science, becomes a case study to examine the avoidance of limitations imposed by exam-driven targets. Instead an environment was fostered that actively promoted a ‘learning for all’ philosophy including teachers and mature students.

Abstract

144

JADE 27.2 (2008)© 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 NSEAD/Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Sheridan Horn

145IntroductionFor some years, ‘accountability’ has been the watchword for those engaged in art education at secondary level. Teachers are unsurprisingly reluctant to tackle risky or innovative projects which may skewer their school’s examination targets and league table positions. Additionally, health and safety and child protection laws are at least a potential threat to creative projects with children. Ann Harding (2005, 6) rightly notes that a rigid bureaucratic system which ‘“may not even notice the magic”, that ‘“sparking” between artists and children is certainly capable of, offer-ing something beyond their everyday lessons and mundane experience’.

A limited school budget is unlikely to facilitate regular contact with artists. Financial and timeta-bling restraints threaten extramural visits and, as the 2004 NFER report (DW 2004, 52) confirms, secondary art and design education is dominated by reference to nineteenth- and early and mid twentieth-century art practice; the resultant curriculum is generally static and uncontentious, delivered by formulaic, ‘safe’ teaching methods. Arthur Hughes (1993, 4) claimed that this ‘tradi-tional approach’ ‘tends to avoid the more difficult issues surrounding a work of art – matters of race, gender, politics, ethics’.

Examination assessment criteria further restrain teachers – as Rachel Mason and John Steers (2006, 124) have indicated:

criteria are written at a level of generality intended to accommodate any possible response. Clearly this only works when like is compared with like: anything more challenging that does not conform to the particular conceptual framework of the examination is less likely to be properly rewarded, thus encouraging further orthodoxy.

They conclude that an urgent review needs to investigate the extent to which external assess-ment of art and design impacts on curriculae and dictates the ‘safer’ classroom approach, which tends to result in pastiche. Satisfying stakehold-ers’ expectations threatens to confound art teachers’ desire to provide a balanced and inno-vative curriculum; the art department at Trinity

Catholic School in Leamington Spa has attempted to withstand that challenge.

From its inception, Trinity art department has enjoyed a widespread reputation for its outstand-ing fine art education. Peter Hastings, the first head teacher, recognised the value of the arts by placing them at the core of the curriculum. A well-established tradition, funded by the Gulbenkian Trust, of hosting artists in residence began in the 1980s. Among the first were the internationally acclaimed sculptor Ana-Maria Pacheco and the expressionist painter Ian Jones, and latterly, resi-dent artists have included the figurative painter Alison Lambert and artist-poet Emmanuel Taiwo Jegede. Our policy of offering free studio space to art and design graduates and local artists in exchange for their expertise has ensured a continuous programme of artists, including members of the art department who have embarked on various artist teacher schemes.

Trinity has also won acclaim for annual installa-tions involving hundreds of students working and exhibiting alongside professional artists. For several weeks of the year the art department is closed down as a working studio space in order to become a gallery resource centre used by differ-ent curriculum areas and the local community.

This allows for a wide range of learning outcomes. To demonstrate the benefits of this type of teaching practice I will refer to the most recent installation, ‘Laboratories’, which explored links between art and science.

‘Laboratories’ installation – 2007, Key Stages 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, mature students, a sci-artist, artists in residence and artist teachersThis ten-month collaborative venture culminated in an exhibition in February 2007. As preparation, art and science staff met to discuss the relation-ships and differences between the two disciplines. Two art teachers took part in the Creative Encoun-ters seminar, 30–31 May 2006, ‘Exploring young people’s art inspired by science’ at the University of York. Art staff also visited a hospital pathology laboratory to observe laboratory practice.

Cross-curricular links with English, Religious Education, Theatre Studies, Maths, Modern Foreign Languages, PSHE and Citizenship were


facilitated. In October the art and science depart-ments joined forces and took all Year 8 pupils with Year 12 and 13 fine art and photography students to the Science Museum in London for research purposes.

During the autumn term local primary children and their families took part in a sci-art weekend workshop. A series of evening adult art work-shops entitled ‘Microbes’ allowed participants to explore the diversity of microbial life forms with artist in residence and biologist Lucy Halliday (ex-Trinity pupil). A collaborative wall hanging was produced using printmaking techniques and displayed in the final installation.

Artists and scientists both employ exploration, imagination and observation in their work. As Anthony Crabbe (cited in Kim & Kim 2005, 4) has observed, the first anatomists were professional artists, depicting the human body for scientific advancement as much as personal curiosity. However, whereas scientists are motivated by the desire to prove hypotheses, artists are gener-ally more concerned with process and interpreta-tion. During the production of the ‘Laboratories’ installation, participants explored the practice that occurs in scientific laboratories relating to pathology, medicine, genetic engineering, pros-thetics and biotechnology. They were encour-aged to debate moral and social issues related to scientific exploration.

All departments involved produced generic schemes of work for Key Stages 3, 4 and 5 which formed the bases of those for individual groups. Pupils researched the work of artists who tackled related areas. These included Helen Chadwick, Marc Quinn and Mona Hatoum, especially in their use of medical procedures to explore the perme-able boundaries of the body. The work of perform-ance artist Stelarc was analysed in terms of the interface that occurs between technology and the self. Students considered why Marc Dion and Damien Hurst display their work in a scientific manner; human anatomy was tracked from Leon-ardo da Vinci and Andrea Vesalius through to the contemporary work of John Isaac and Katherine Dowson.

Artists in residenceThe direct experience of professional artists work-ing in situ was provided by the Korean sci-artist Seong-Hee Kim and the nationally recognised artist Grace Newman. Seong-Hee Kim is a sculptor who works primarily in stone, wood and marble. During her residency (October 2006 – February 2007) her studio space quickly became a visual testimony to the benefits that can be gained from bringing art and science together. Her working area contained conceptual drawings, photographs and plastic models of the DNA structure. Laid out on table tops were hand sized cut-out marble templates based on formulaic diagrams of amino acids and large metal plates inspired by chromo-somes. Seong-Hee Kim brought in carved helixes and a plethora of scientific equipment used for collecting DNA samples.

With selected groups of Key Stage 3 pupils she discussed her own work and concepts related to DNA. The pupils explored identity issues; they were asked to collect small personal items such as photographs, hair, teeth or toenail clippings from themselves or their families.The pupils designed and constructed DNA-influ-enced sculptural forms together using chicken wire that spanned from floor to ceiling. They decided that they wished to cover these struc-tures with autumn leaves to represent ‘the tree of life’, symbolically connecting our ancestral lineage and genetic heritage. Clear plastic vials and bottles containing their collected items were attached to the sculptures or strewn among leaves scattered on the floor, thus depicting life cycles and our connection to the natural world. The plastic containers nestling amongst the leaves also mimicked discarded rubbish, highlighting our scant respect for earth’s resources despite our dependence on them (Figures 1 and 2).

As a sculptor, Grace Newman worked for one day a week between October 2006 and January 2007. She constructs highly formal clinical sculp-tures using medical materials and equipment. These have included a large bed of hypodermic needles which rendered the domestic image of a bed disturbing. She explains (2006) that:

Sheridan Horn

146


This page:

Figure 1 Sculptural solutions inspired by DNA structures. Seong-Hee Kim working with Key Stage 3 pupils.

Figure 2 (inset) Detail of sculptural piece based on DNA structure showing personal items collected by Key Stage 3 students and artist in residence Seong-Hee Kim.

Sheridan Horn

147


Sheridan Horn

148


Opposite page:

Figure 3 Cell structure installation produced by Grace Newman and selected Key Stage 3 students.

This page:

Figure 4 ‘Inner Bodies’ installation. Grace Newman working with Key Stage 3 pupils.

Sheridan Horn

149

Despair, the AIDS crisis, invasive disease, death and a struggling welfare state are major concerns in society today, often made worse by media scaremongering. These fears are the underlying ingredient, the edge and tension in my work.

During her residency Newman worked with small groups of Key Stage 3 pupils surrounded by an eclectic mix of sculptural media such as surgical gowns, glass slides, jelly babies, cross-sections of loofah, string of beads, reference books and photographs of her work and that of the photog-rapher Boyd Webb.

With Newman, pupils examined the awesome diversity and structural formations of human body cells and produced their own imaginary sculptural solutions and relief pieces in response. This resulted in two installations entitled ‘Cell Structure’ and ‘Inner Bodies’. ‘Cell Structure’ (Figure 3) alluded to the interior of the human body at a cellular level as revealed through modern imaging techniques. The ‘Inner Bodies’ installation was exhibited inside a blacked out space. A tube-like form about the size of a rolled-

up carpet was laid out on tables arranged in an ‘L’ shape against the interior walls. Closer inspection revealed that the skin of this intestinal structure was in fact a series of green surgical gowns sutured together over an armature. At regular intervals light bled through rectangular apertures cut into the top of the cotton membrane. Peering into these cavities revealed strange luminous landscapes which again alluded to the body inte-rior at a cellular level (Figure 4).

Working concurrently on this project were three ex-Trinity pupils. Eva Smets, a gap year student, explored issues relating to cloning and designer babies with Key Stage 3 pupils. Lucy Halliday worked with Key Stage 4 and 5 pupils exploring proprioception and the phenomenon of phantom limbs, producing a collaborative piece using film and sculptural processes. Miriam Zavelking, a fashion and textiles graduate, worked with Year 9 students exploring the ‘scene of crime’ through the production of body casts in plaster.


Sheridan Horn

150


Sheridan Horn

151

Artist teachers and sixth form artist students in residenceThree artist teachers also took part in the artist in residence programme: Gill Jopia, Sheridan Horn and Francis Gerrish. In addition to their timetabled lessons, they worked alongside their students to produce their own responses to the ‘Laborato-ries’ project.

Gill Jopia explored the concept of clothing as an autopsy specimen with her students. Pupils observed the dissection of a rat performed by a biology teacher during their art lesson (Figure 5). They learnt about the internal mechanisms of their own bodies through this and documented the unfolding autopsy through film, annotated drawings and photography. The lessons were striking examples of teaching as theatre.

The students produced observational draw-ings and paintings of a chosen garment; they analysed dissected sections of clothing and samples were recorded as enlarged drawings and stored in Petri dishes, test tubes and surgical trays (Figures 6 and 7). GCSE students produced fictional narratives using their items of clothing as a stimulus.

Jopia’s anatomical dissection of a wedding dress symbolically enacted a marital breakdown. This investigation involved a performance piece, ‘A-Part’, presented in front of Year 12 and 13 fine art students. The artist, dressed as a bride, lay on a table in a darkened room, cordoned off in a rectangle made of opaque plastic sheets hung from ceiling to floor. The table was spot lit. A scene-of-crime officer, suitably attired, arrived and then proceeded to systematically cut and pin back the five layers of the wedding dress mimick-

ing dissection or the symbolic separation of part-ners. Samples such as lace buttons and tiny cotton roses were carefully removed and sealed into evidence bags – a further allusion to the breakdown of a marriage (Figure 8).

Jopia’s final outcome was an installation housed in a wedge-shaped room, with the iconic wedding dress pinned out onto the back wall; over it played the film of ‘A-Part’. The room contained life-size sepia studies of the dress and associated wedding day items that were soaked in blood and sealed into Petri dishes (Figures 9 and 10). Further tension was created by the constant hum of swarming wasps.

Being an artist teacher had a profound effect on Jopia’s teaching practice (Jopia 2007):

It was very satisfying to witness students engage with the subject matter more readily and mean-ingfully. Often it is a struggle for students to fully understand different aspects of the contextual content of their coursework; however their under-standing of my methodologies and intentions was heightened by my working alongside them.

Opposite page:

Figure 5 Rat dissection.

Figure 6 Years 10 and 11. Analysis of clothing as an autopsy specimen.

Figure 7 Year 11 student dissection of a slipper.

This page:

Figure 8 Gill Jopia – ‘A-part’, performance piece.

Figure 9 Gill Jopia – Final installation.

Figure 10 Gill Jopia – Anatomy of a wedding dress. A3 pencil crayon and painted blood studies.


Sheridan Horn

152

During the autumn term Gill Jopia also worked with Year 8 pupils and their art teacher at Bishop Ullathorne School. The students created a collab-orative wall hanging inspired by ‘Timorous Beast-ies’, whose wall fabrics are based on insects, organs and scientific equipment. They used the Trinity exhibition, which included their work, for follow-up activities. Such invaluable links between local schools allow teachers to share ideas and skills.

As an artist teacher (Sheridan Horn) I explored issues relating to co-dependency, stasis, medi-cine and the interstices between sleep/death. I established a fictional laboratory, ‘The Department of Parasitology’ in which I acted as an obsessive parasitologist/scientist, dressed in a white coat and with identification insignia: ‘Professor Fluke’. I created hundreds of parasites and hosts in latex, wax or paper taken from casts of fish, rats, fruit, bones, vegetables and the entire female figure. These forms were then stored in liquid-filled jars, vitrines, tanks and bottles (Figure 11).

Each item was logged and shelved as in a museum. On entering the ‘Department of Parasi-

tology’, visitors confronted a supine male figure on an autopsy table potentially awaiting a medi-cal procedure (Figure 12). The sound of a fast-tick-ing clock that stopped suddenly and then started again created a sense of anxiety.

I used the potential threat of a parasite to its host as an analogy for our abuse of the planet. Year 7 and 8 pupils explored the fishing of the world’s oceans and its repercussions. In response they made fish skeletons using wire masking tape and cast dead fish in mod-roc (Figure 13). Both exercises explored how negative space in sculpture can signify absence and death.

Two Year 12 students completed their work experience as artists in residence at Trinity School. Laragh Horn explored the transient nature of language with Key Stage 3 pupils in the instal-lation ‘Train of Thought’. Pupils responded to an extract from Wim Wenders’ Wings of Desire through mark making, concrete poetry and making their own sounds/words. The artist and students translated these into three dimensions using red electric cable, constructing five columns from the wire monologues that appeared to


Sheridan Horn

153

Opposite page:

Figure 11 Sheridan Horn – ‘Department of Parasitology’ installation. Latex parasites and hosts.

This page:

Figure 12 Sheridan Horn – ‘Department of Parasitology’ installation. Patient awaiting a medical procedure.

Figure 13 Years 7 and 8 masking tape and wire fish skeletons and negative mod-roc fish casts.


Sheridan Horn

154

haemorrhage from the ceiling and sprawl on the floor, ending in plugs and light bulbs. The cable gave enough form to resemble text whilst allow-ing for sufficient distortion to show movement (Figure 14).

Anneka Noon worked with Year 10 photogra-phy students exploring body stereotyping. Through the use of a photocopier and under Noon’s guidance, pupils investigated how major distortions of the figure challenge our personal perceptions.

For the duration of the ‘Laboratories’ project, artist teacher Francis Gerrish and Laragh Horn worked alongside one another in the film and media department where they pursued their common interest in semantics. Gerrish explored the aesthetic quality of alphabetical letter forms. This involved the production of relief pieces either containing the letter ‘A’ placed in liquid lead and left to cool, or traced over miniature wooden doors (Figure 15). Both artists use archetypes such as letters and objects to convey universal meaning. The shadow of a letter in Gerrish’s work, for example, reminds one of the trace of a sound.

Horn dealt with the transition between the spoken and written word, producing several mechanisms that required the viewer to interact with them so that words could be created then lost again. She also vocalised her artwork. The series ‘Poetic Units’ (a collection of dials and mechanisms that when correctly configured spelled out poetry) (Figure 16), was recorded and played in the installation. The automated voice recited the poetry. The piece ‘Mechanism’ (a random word generator) was spoken in English, French, Spanish, German, the phonetic alphabet and Morse code. She also (Horn 2007) (Figure 17) explored the contrast between fluidity and control in language:

Just as thermoplastics can be melted down and reformed into new solid structures, so can speech be broken down into the building blocks of words and even restructured as sounds. In this piece I used a laser cutter to cut five sentences out of wood that I had written about thermoplastics. I then drilled these and strung them in five rows between metal stands. The letters were free to


Sheridan Horn

155

move and form new arrangements but simultane-ously were confined to a single thread again suggesting an imposed order .

Gerrish and Horn’s installation ‘The Verbal becomes the Visual’ invited the viewer to see both language and art as independent means of conveying sensual, conscious and subconscious experience. Francis Gerrish (2007) stated that as an artist who normally works in isolation he found this collaborative experience ‘created a sense of purpose and renewed dynamism in the way that I approached my own work’. The passion and vitality pupils bring to a working environment cannot be underestimated; they generate a vibrant atmosphere from which other artists benefit as much as pupils.

Open-plan studio spaces within classrooms gave students the opportunity to compare and contrast a variety of working methods. An estab-lished tradition of artists in residence familiarises older students with this way of learning, encour-aging them to establish themselves as artists in their own right and communicate ideas to

younger pupils. In this way an artist in residence tradition is largely self-sustaining and allows both the students’ practice and understanding of collaborative experience to mature.

The gallery resource centreCreating a gallery resource centre required the closure of half of the art department; displaced art classes are taught elsewhere. The local community is notified about the installation and advance teacher packs are dispatched to local institutions and the media.

The viewer first encountered a labyrinth of laboratory set-ups and research stations. Work from Key Stages 1–4 was presented collectively (Figure 18); Key Stage 5 work was arranged in a series of units (Figures 19 and 20). Sounds such as dripping liquid, hissing gas and heart beats accompanied the smell of decaying organic matter, blood and disinfectant. This oscillation between fiction and reality was further height-ened at the private view by white coated lab assistants who carried out scientific procedures. These included a rat dissection, an experiment in

Opposite page:

Figure 14 Laragh Horn – ‘Train of Thought’ installation.

Figure 15 Francis Gerrish – A1 relief pieces.

Figure 16 Laragh Horn – ‘The Poetic Units Series’ – ‘Mechanism’

This page:

Figure 17 Laragh Horn – Thermoplastics.

Figure 18 General view of ‘Laboratories’ installation. Left hand side: The Religious Education department’s contribution. Test-tube babies and cloning project, votive candle holders and Petri dishes containing specimens.

Figure 19 Sofia Diaz – Year 12. ‘Scene of the Crime’ installation.


Sheridan Horn

156

which mathematics staff measured subjects to see if they fitted into the golden ratio and drama students who enacted workstation procedures.

The installation was used both in-house and by the wider community for educational purposes. The English department devised cross-curricular schemes based on the theme ‘Laboratories’, such as deploying science fiction or gothic texts. Brownings ‘The Laboratory’ and other poems were deconstructed by GCSE students who used the artwork to display textual extracts. The exhibition was also used as a Key Stage 3 resource for creative writing.

Modern Foreign Language classes visited and discussed the entire exhibition in French. The Religious Education department used it to analyse the ethical questions associated with test tube babies and cloning and produced an exhibit for general viewing (Figure 18).

An INSET training session based on the exhi-bition was provided for twelve primary school teachers. Visiting science and art classes were encouraged to explore and discuss the connec-tions and differences between the two disci-

plines and to analyse the underlying concepts of the artwork produced from both objective and subjective points of view.

ConclusionThe production of an installation produced by children for the public and themselves gives them ownership of the venue. The art work can literally be handled and examined closely. A delib-erate policy of not putting information next to specific pieces of work indicating the age of the participant(s) ensures that all work is viewed equally.

Students not only investigated a particular topic in detail but gained a wider appreciation of the issues involved when viewing it as part of a cohesive collection. Students have a commonal-ity of interest both during the production process and at its culmination. They visited the installa-tions and engaged with each another about different approaches, methods of production and subject content. The atmosphere when producing a collaborative piece is highly charged and the final exhibition gives the pupils a sense of status and pride.

As Siân Ede (2005, 10) recognises in her book Art and Science:

Good artwork is always more than the sum of its parts and operates like poetry, making suggestions, hinting at associations, teasing emotionally, chal-lenging intellectually and expecting the viewer to play a part in making new meaning from it.

By exhibiting work produced by a whole range of artists based on a particular issue or theme, the viewer discerns patterns of interconnectedness amongst seemingly random elements and thus creates new associations for themselves.

Artist teachers are also able to make visual their own responses to an issue alongside that of their pupils. Pupils themselves see their teachers as artists struggling with concepts just as they do. The tradition of artists in residence estab-lishes a culture of production and thinking. Art is a creative process; collaborative ventures such as these invite everyone involved to be open to challenge, to engage in risk.


Sheridan Horn

157It is inevitable that the current educational climate has inhibited many teachers. Not all staff are lucky enough to be working in a department where an initiative that failed would be simply viewed as an unfortunate blip. Art education can break free of current constraints in order to offer challenge rather than be an exercise that is geared towards the meeting of preset targets.

ReferencesDowning, D. & Watson R. (2004) School Art: What’s in it? Slough: NFER

Ede, S. (2005) Art and Science, London: I.B. Tauris

Gerrish, F. (2007) interview, 5 April

Harding, A. (2005) Magic Moments: Collabora-tion between Artists and Young People, London: Black Dog

Horn, L. (2007) interview, 5 April

Hughes, A. (1993) Talking in Class. Birmingham: The Article Press

Jopia, G. (2007) interview, 23 March

Kim, Seong-Hee & Kim, Seong-Heon (2005) Life is Endless Desire, exhibition catalogue. Korea: Mirae Design Foundation.

Mason, R. & Steers, J. (2006) The impact of formal assessment procedures on teaching and learning in art and design in secondary schools, International Journal of Art & Design Education, Vol. 25, No. 2, pp. 119–33

Newman, G. (2006) www.bbc.co.uk/coventry/cult.../profiles/grace-newman-profile.shtml

Opposite page:

Figure 20 Amber Davies – Year 12. Botany installation (detail).


The Contemporary Art of Collaboration

Documents

Transcript of The Contemporary Art of Collaboration