2020 - 2021
Camden Art Centre’s Special Educational Needs Schools Programme works in collaboration with young people, teachers and artists. The project addresses the lack of access for people with learning disabilities to creative experiences and careers in the visual arts. It aims to increase creative opportunities for people with profound and multiple learning disabilities and to encourage confidence and independence through collaborative activities that champion all forms of communication and self-expression.
It is our vision, along with the support of ActionSpace as a partner, to improve access and opportunities to the arts for artists and young people with learning disabilities, and to increase participation, education and training provision.
For the 2020/21 academic year artists Evan Bond, Lydia CS and Natalie Zervou-Kerruish were working with teachers and young people from Oaklodge School in Barnet, and Shaftesbury High School in Harrow. Adapted in line with COVID-19 restrictions, the artists are leading online sessions, zooming into the classrooms and working collaboratively with teachers to deliver creative sessions in the school context.
Workshop themes included Dreams, Movement, Gesture, Communication and more, which can be explored further in our Digital Publication ‘I can only dream of living things being made out of letters’. The yearculminatedin an exhibition of students’ work in our Artist’s Studio in summer 2021, bringing the work made online and in the classrooms back to Camden Art Centre to share with our visitors.
Due to the nature of this programme happening during the global pandemic, and the closure of the schools at a key point in the project, the artists created a series of recorded activities to be used by the schools independently to extend creativity both in the classroom and for pupils at home. Each activity comprises a short video, with an associated set of prompts and actions and can be downloaded below.
