In the second session of our Kids’ Own Youth Advisory Group, associate writer Mary Branley, with support from writer Sarah O’Keefe, came together with our associate artist Vanya Lambrecht Ward for another creative project. This week they created a Leporello; a book folded in to a concertina style. The children we very happy to meet with their friends again and the session was a wonderful opportunity for everyone. Through these initial sessions we hope to immerse the children and young people in Kids’ Own arts practices so they might gain an understanding of how vital their input is to our work. This group will advise Kids’ Own on the development of a new Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion policy for the organisation.

Kids’ Own Associate Writer Mary Branley said she really enjoyed working with Vanya, Sarah, and the children and young people on the new Leporello books, and also commented on the suitability of the activity for exploring diversity in a very gentle way. Writer Sarah O’Keefe added  “Having artist Vanya join us for a new creative element to the project, the Leporello, was an engaging opportunity for everyone! Participants could use this unique book fold in a variety of ways, which offered many opportunities for themes, colour, technique, and style. Vanya began the session inviting participants to think of words, but more importantly, to think of how the words sound, and to play with how this could look on a page. Stations were arranged where participants could experiment with stencils, prints, stamps, and colours to create and form their Leporello books. In the end, everyone had an opportunity to share their work with the group. Themes ranged from skinny giraffes to the letter L with Storm Troopers, but there was one thing that everyone agreed, it was a lot of fun and “The books look like a pair of trousers!”

Vanya said “We worked with words in the accordion books as if they were clay or paint, as material instead of words really; treating the letters and lines as marks and matter. Sometimes they inspired the words flowing from it or the image they then created! It’s not easy though, to approach these things anew but we tried this playing with words and letters (in the form of stamps, stencil, cut out and trace) to see what might come up in conversation and be interesting and possibly even useful in the future! It’s in my opinion, always exciting even slightly scary, to try your hand at new things and techniques, but that is where the gems come out, that is where we find ourselves with new thoughts and afterwards, new skills!”

See how the first session went here: Youth Advisory Group Session One

Photos by Sarah O’Keefe.