Taking Root is an ongoing project set in Camden Art Centre's garden, utilising the outdoors as a site for playful learning, making art and reflecting on spaces and environments around us
Through artist-led activities, children and families can work on large scale and site specific pieces that respond to the natural ecology of the garden.
Each season until summer 2014, artist Shona Handley worked with Year 1 and Reception classes from Holy Trinity Primary School to look at the idea of imaginative play through the construction of costumes for creatures and objects that inhabit the garden. Each school workshop was closely followed by a family day for the pupils, their families and members of the public to come together and develop activities further in an intergenerational setting.
Taking Root addresses a desire from families, children and local schools to have a place in the garden for the appreciation and discovery of wildlife in all its myriad of forms. Led by artists, the project continues our diverse use of this space which has included Ilana Mitchell’s vegetable growing, Heather and Ivan Morison’s bee hives, Ron Haselden’s string installation, erect architecture periscope project and most recently Anne Harild’s animations.
