Aimhigher - Making Dreams Fly

Abraham Guest High School, Orrell, near Wigan

Year 8 students worked with the animator, Rowena Kidd, discovering the process of animation in order to make dreams and aspirations fly. They worked in small production teams, creating installations that mapped out a narrative, thinking very symbolically about colour, shape and texture. Their three animations are edited together to create a group animation.

Their first animation explored very simple ideas to do with layering colour. The resulting beauty and sense of blossoming and opening is captured by the process of animation. Colour spreads, evolves, blooms into life, promoting a feeling of celebration as the pupils began to explore the theme of ‘aiming higher’.

The box is a symbol of hopes and dreams, with each group exploring the idea in different ways. Plain cardboard boxes labeled ‘fragile’ held smaller boxes, tipping over to reveal rolled up lengths of coloured paper. Other boxes were quickly transformed by exuberant vibrant combinations of dripping paint and tissue paper, interspersed with a real sense of fun and involvement as the group include themselves in the excitement of the shapes and textures.

The final part of the process involved the pupils in the Paul Klee idea of taking a line for a walk, again reflecting the sense of journeying and adventure, drawing themselves into the contours of an evolving landscape.

Aimhigher - Mapping our Future

Shakerley CE Primary School, Tyldesley, near Wigan

The Year 6 class worked with the textile artist, Angela Cusani-Turner. They created a series of collaged panels that connect together to explore the idea of growing up and out into the world.

They began with drawings of themselves, their sense of home and their neighbourhood. They created collaged surfaces using maps of their locality and as the panel developed, local maps were replaced by maps from further afield. The children were encouraged to discuss their ideas about further education, creating a collaged panel made from leaflets from local colleges. A sense of purpose and direction has been created by the addition of vividly coloured and textured arrows, continually surging in the direction of further education. The panels are completed by a series of flags, communicating the idea of achievement.

Aimhigher - Unfolded Flying Dreams

Wigan and Leigh College

Students who have recently completed their Foundation Course in Art and Design spent a week working in the studio of the Drumcroon Gallery artist in residence, Rachel Arkwright. Rachel recently graduated from the Contemporary Crafts course at MMU, after completing her Foundation Course at Wigan. The young artist presented a really positive role model for the younger students about to embark on their further education. She set them a brief to work collaboratively to create a sculptural textile communicating ideas about achievement, aspiration, celebration, success, change, dreams and ambition.

Students worked with print to transform fabric with language and colour. Printed fabric lengths were then folded and stacked with the idea of building a stack of folded dreams, creating interesting viewpoints of edges and textures. As the stack developed, the group felt that the dreams needed to evolve out of their folded form into something much more organic and adventurous in order to capture the sense of excitement and change that aiming higher can bring. Folded fabric lengths were then reinforced with wire enabling the fabric to become more flexible and hold a variety of shapes. The dreams evolved into a suspended three dimensional form, overflowing with ideas and possibilities, with finer threads connecting to the ground, and a central crown, continuing the theme of something glorious and celebratory.

Aimhigher - Environment

Highfield St Matthews CE Primary School, Wigan Year 6 worked with the denmaker, Graham Marsden. They worked collaboratively to create large panels that will ultimately come together to create an environment, that can be disassembled and reassembled very easily and can accommodate the whole class. This piece remains a 'live' work, to be continued with next years class 6 as they approach the end of their primary education. The form of the environment is very significant, symbolizing the sense of transition from one environment to another. The Year 6 children have created a space within which they can reflect on their experiences of primary school and look forward to their future. In that sense it is a space that enables them to reflect on past, present and future concerns. Graham encouraged them to approach their environment as a special place, connecting with the nomadic tradition of a central communal space, particularly with regard to quiet reflection and resolving of problems. The inner surface of the panels reflects ideas to do with aspiration and personal development. When they are bound together, these revolve around a central point and during the planning stage there was discussion about the symbolism of fires, the sense that the energy within the tent will evolve outwards into the atmosphere, like the smoke from a fire, reinforcing the sense of aspiration.

Aimhigher-A Big Book of Personal Journeys

Hesketh Fletcher CE High School, Atherton, near Wigan

Year 10 students working with the landscape artist, Gemma Gaskell, developed tall narrow collaged panels, exploring routes and journeys to create personal patterns and textures. Their symbolic use of shape and colour was also inspired by the work of the Austrian artist, Hundertwasser.

The richly coloured surfaces reflect a sense of enjoyment and celebration. Students worked on the idea that their collaged surfaces represent the pathways and journeys they will make as they aim higher through education to personal fulfillment. Students found symbolic colours and shapes to create their own maps, drawing on Hundertwasser's use of contour lines to reinforce the sense of exploration and adventure.

Individual pieces have come together in the form of a Big Book, a form that represents ideas about personal development and knowledge. There is a strong sense of individual pupils collaborating with each other in order to share ideas and create networks of support and connection.

Aimhigher - Roots and Routes

Lowton Community High School, Lowton, near Wigan

Year 8 students worked with the artist, Gemma Gaskell, using natural forms as the starting point for an exploration into considering their future life. This project was partly inspired by the Google Earth website which enables the viewer to enter their post code in order to be zoomed down to earth from outer space and presented with an aerial view of their home. The thinking behind this project set out to turn the sensation of zooming down to earth upside down, aiming instead to inspire the young people to move outwards and upwards, embracing a sense of the world.

Students made drawings of natural forms that they had gathered in the school grounds onto collaged surfaces of local maps, school plans and the A-Z of Wigan. This became almost like a self portrait of the present life of the student – a symbolic reference to themselves at school.

Students then collaborated in groups to connect their individual drawings together and begin to work in card relief to create something much more structural, Discussion revolved around the decisions being made when connecting forms, with students encouraged to consider where they might journey to themselves and to anticipate planning their journey. The resulting forms seem to represent tree forms, solid, vertical, grounded - a sense that the young people are secure and confident in their ability to evolve and grow into the world.

Aimhigher - Observe and Imagine

Golborne High School, near Wigan

The landscape artist, Gemma Gaskell worked with Year 7 and Year 8 students, to explore how organic structures can create visual metaphors for growing and evolving into the future. Students made drawings from a still life set up in the classroom. She encouraged them to extend their drawings by adding more paper, not necessarily in straight lines, so that the sense of adventuring into the unknown became exciting, integral to the underlying idea of embracing change, challenge and risk.

The students were then asked to work on a much larger scale, using their observation to analyze and record what they saw. Their mark-making also included fragments of language to do with aiming higher, searching, discovering. As their confidence grew, Gemma encouraged them to begin to make imaginative leaps. They moved away from the familiar observed forms and began to imagine forms of their own. They are very physical works, and seem to capture the spirit and energy of the natural landscape. The process of creating these drawings reflects a powerful sense of discovery, with students feeling much more confident and willing to take risks, to think beyond what they can see, and to imagine other realities.

Aimhigher - Aspirational Structures

Hawkley Hall High School, Wigan

Year 8 students worked with the textile artist, Angela Cusani-Turner to create a range of personal structures that reflect discussion and reflections about the shape and purpose of their lives. Students worked with collage material that was carefully chosen to reflect ideas about directions that they would like to take in life.

The group began the work by considering the idea that they would design a vessel that was to be symbolic of their aspirations. The vessel form represents ideas about themselves - containers full of hopes and ambitions. The young people created shapes that encapsulated a sense of themselves, their interests and qualities. They aimed to create shapes and structures that reinforced a sense of aspiration. These were then collaged and painted using bold patterns to convey a feeling of celebration. Maps and locations convey an atmosphere of excitement, suggesting the planning of a journey and the anticipation of traveling.

Aimhigher - Who do you think you are?

St John Fisher Catholic High School, Wigan

Year 7 and Year 8 students worked with the digital artist Colin Halsall to explore the concept of past and present in order to begin to think beyond school and to imagine their futures. Following the idea of the recent BBC TV programme, they were asked to assemble a variety of family photographs, inspired by the photomontage work of the British photographer, Deborah Baker.

Students quickly became skilled using Photoshop software. They selected from their personal collections, combining images of their hometown of Wigan, both past and present, with future landscapes that they might find themselves in. They were asked to consider how wide their horizons are, their dreams and aspirations. The panoramic image is symbolic of a wide immense landscape, presenting a wealth of directions to follow.

The resulting images are beautiful in themselves, but in order to reinforce the sense of aiming higher, the works have been assembled into a joint piece that connects all the panoramas together. Some images have also been printed onto acetate sheets, and laid onto a grid structure, with the idea of being lit from within, communicating the sense of illumination and well being that achievement can bring.

Aimhigher - A Garden of Hearts and Minds

Cansfield Community High School, Ashton-in-Makerfield, Wigan

Year 10 art and technology students worked with the textile artist, Ruth Isherwood to create a richly coloured sculptural textile which explores ideas about personal growth. Working with a range of media, pupils were encouraged to experiment with colour and texture, creating forms and surfaces to symbolize their sense of themselves. Two-dimensional layered ‘self-portraits’ developed into fantastical three-dimensional shapes that suggest ideas about growth and personal development. As a former Wigan student, Ruth is an ideal role model in terms of further education. Part of the residency enabled Ruth to present her personal journey through education in the visual arts, to her current artist in residence role at the Drumcroon Gallery.

Students began by working collaboratively on a wooden grid structure, developing the understanding that this was symbolic of structures in their life that could support them. Working individually, they created works that reflect their background, personal interests and ideas about future careers. These were then tied into the grid to reflect ideas about interaction, connection and support.

Large organic structures seem to burst with colour and texture, evolving out of the grid, enabling linear forms to spiral outwards and upwards, reinforcing the sense of aspiration. Many of the forms contain the students’ hopes and aims for their future.

Aimhigher - Digital Totems

Bedford High School, Leigh

Year 10 pupils worked with the artist, Paul Clifford, to explore personal identity and inspirational themes linked to totemic animal forms. Students were asked to investigate positive aspects of self relating to characteristics of particular creatures. This included notions of adaptability, courageousness, ingenuity, curiosity and survival instincts – all important qualities if we are to take the opportunities that will help us to realize potential.

Students created digital self portraits using Adobe Photoshop software. Image transfer techniques were then used to create textured wood panels developed in mixed-media. The resulting sculptural piece enabled students to work collaboratively to present their combined characteristics. The ladders are inspired by carved Native American totem poles and African and Indonesian sky-ladders, which were believed to connect earth to the heavens, reinforcing the concept of looking upwards, of striving and searching. The group devised a range of possible ways of presenting the outcomes. The circular form is interesting in that it enables all the pieces to come together creating a sense of mutual support, a network of individuals who have an empathy and understanding of themselves and each other.

Aimhigher Wigan in Collaboration with Drumcroon Gallery

Wigan LEA Aim Higher – Festival of Aspiration

A diverse group of artists have worked with pupils in Wigan schools to explore a sense of themselves and their aims for the future. Artists have been role models for the young people, embodying ideas about aspiration, creativity and expression. Projects have sought to provide pupils with ways of envisioning a future in which they can see themselves discovering and realizing dreams and ambitions. Just as importantly, projects have been underpinned by Citizenship themes. Much of the language that has been generated by this work explores a sense of what kind of human being we want to be, what it means to be a good citizen and to consider the kind of world we would like to inhabit. The Festival addresses the Every Child Matters outcomes in terms of ‘enjoyment and achievement’ and ‘economic well-being’, but the spirit of the work is about ‘making a positive contribution.’