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.