Published 01.03.2020
by Kids’ Own
by Kids’ Own
A children’s arts organisation and publishing house.
A children’s arts organisation and publishing house.
Artist: Lisa Cahill
Teacher: Leanne Kyle
The exhibition pieces offer an insight into our creative journey through the virtual space out into the natural environment around the school and portray the intimacy of our exploration and play. Lisa went on this journey too, through the use of digital technology. There were also treasured real visits. As an Eco School, the grounds provided a rich natural stimulus for the children to research and respond to nature. Our attentive and experimental practice mirrored the school’s play-based learning approach. Child-led learning, through Virtually There, promoted speech and language, thinking skills and problem-solving and provided space for the children to plan and work together.
Warm-ups were developed from the children’s ideas and suggestions. We moved, played, foraged, got messy and invented, while attending to what our bodies were telling us. We listened. We invited the senses to guide us through close observation, charcoal mark making, drawing, sound recording, pastel leaf tattoos, surface rubbings with natural materials and movement. New language emerged to describe this process, ‘Art dirt’. The children invited conversations with their families as they investigated lost words from nature. We brought these rediscovered words outside with us. We carried them in our hearts, minds and feet. Going outdoors and getting messy is a creative, enlivening and muddy business. Our exhibition highlights the creative joy, deepfelt experience and rich landscape of our wanderings, conversations, movement and dancing.
