Workshop Overview
Exhibition: Previously, the children had worked with artists to create two artworks. This event allowed them to view and reflect on their work in the exhibition space:
“Cast Hands” - pairs of children’s hands holding on to each other which have been cast in plaster.
“Living Bricks” - All pupils were invited to work with their parents to create a brick. On the face of each brick, participants were asked to write a word or quote which reflected the meaning of “Sanctuary”, welcome or belonging.
Workshop: Following the reflection on their artwork and the history of migration in Swansea, the children were asked to design a postcard depicting “migration” and what it involves with a note to their past selves, reflecting on the challenges they may have faced and what physical items they would need to bring to Swansea.
Description of Activity
This activity used imaginative, arts-based strategies to stimulate the conversations about perceptions of migration.
The artworks facilitated exploration of the experiences and emotions migrants may face on arrival in a new community, enabling greater reflection and empathy.
Drawing postcards on “migration” simplified the topic, enabling the children to symbolically represent their principal perceptions of the highly complex theme, producing new, alternative insights, thus unsettling taken-for-granted narratives.
Outcomes
The children, their families, teachers, artists and social researchers involved in this activity co-created three materials artworks.
These resources capture the perceptions of the children and their families of historical and present migration to Swansea, highlighting previously unheard voices. Due to the creative approaches employed, these perceptions are not limited by language but grasp the immaterial, intersubjective and more-than-rational.
As well as valuable resources for future educational opportunities, these artworks are evidence of what can be achieved through creative interventions.
Impact
Through mobilising existing local community links, this activity delivered whole-community impact by working with young people and their families to imagine and represent their visions of migration. This activity enhanced the capacity of local schools to nurture talents, face common challenges and innovate. This activity involves a broad range of people, highlighting previously unheard voices in discussions on migration, and destabilising existing narratives.
Through the artwork, the children were able to explore and openly discuss the heritage of their school, cathedral, and local community. This activity’s creative approach encouraged research ownership, enabling them to identify and empathise with the broader themes of migration and community, facilitating more comprehensive behavioural change.
The postcards produced during this activity will be sent to other primary schools as a tangible teaching resource to explore migration and community themes further, reaching new audiences by encouraging collaborations. This will enable the transnational circulation of ideas about and positive perceptions of migration that encourage diversity.
As well as showing the perceptions of migration held by young people, the postcards also serve as evidence of the knowledge and understanding of migration gained after the creative activity. The children enjoyed the creativity of the activity; the exploration, experimentation and making-together of materials, which can be integrated into the school curriculum and used as educational resources.
Finally, all the postcards demonstrate a change in attitudes and values, exhibiting empathy and an increased capacity for tolerance towards migrants from all backgrounds.
Team Involved
Swansea University: Sergei Shubin and Oriel Science
St. Joseph’s Cathedral Primary School