Education
In conjunction with Arts in Education, City and County of Swansea, Locws International has established an ongoing educational programme called Locws Schools that sees schools from the Swansea area take part in site-specific arts projects. The projects are run by artist David Marchant and use Locws International events as inspiration.
Locws International events illustrate a broad range of contemporary artwork and are unique in that each of the artworks is made as a direct response to an aspect of Swansea’s culture, heritage, architecture or people. The artworks, created by international and Welsh artists using a variety of mediums, provide a unique educational opportunity and have inspired students to create some very interesting and exciting responses. Locws Schools starts with a guided tour of the artworks at which David Marchant presents some of the thinking behind the artworks and explains the ideas and processes of making the work. The second part of the project sees students create their own site specific art projects inspired by what they have seen and learned, presented at each school in Locws Schools exhibitions.
Locws Schools is open to all schools in the Swansea area. For more information please contact Administrative Support for the Arts on 01792 562667 or email locws@locwsinternational.com
Locws Schools: Guided Tours
The guided tours provide an educational and exciting visual stimuli for students to respond to and to question. Artist David Marchant encourages students‚ to make responses to the artworks while they attempt to unravel what the work means to themselves and what they think the artist is trying to achieve. Each work is carefully explained and the students are encouraged to think of how it could inpsire them to create a piece of their own work within their school or college environment. With the inspiration gained from the tours, the students are expected to produce a response to a particular artwork or artworks and during the course of the first day, students set themselves a brief which they research and investigate by day two of the project, David Marchant’s visit to their school or college.
Locws Schools: Artworks
On day two of Locws Schools, David Marchant works closely with the students to create their own site-specific projects at their school. These artworks are then displayed within the school and emulate the principles of the Locws International event that has inspired them.
Daniel James Community School
Penyrheol Primary School
Locws Schools 2010: Glais Primary School
Artworks inspired by Locws Projects 2010/1:
‘…it is 89 days this morning since we left the Mumbles Head’ by Jackie Chettur
Swansea’s Civic Centre
It was a pleasure to work with the children at Glais Primary School and it was obvious that they had given the project a lot of thought. On my arrival there were some great ideas and concepts ready to put into practice.
One group of girls had even drawn out a beautiful A2 picture of a ship at sea in their own a stylised way in their own personal time and had brought it into school to show myself and the class teacher.
The ideas spanned from manually moving maquettes of ships and dolphins, to animated clay models of ships on a journey to the Cape mixed with inspiration from the film Moby Dick.
The two and three dimensional mix was poignant in the work which was strongly inspired by Jackie Chettur’s installation.
David Marchant 2010
Locws Schools 2010: Hafod Primary School
Artworks inspired by Locws Projects 2010/1:
‘…it is 89 days this morning since we left the Mumbles Head’ by Jackie Chettur
Swansea’s Civic Centre
There was no end of ideas floating around the classroom on my arrival at school. The Children were excited and ready to make some interesting artworks inspired from day one. Multi-layering imagery using two and three-dimensional work was a big influence, derived from Jackie Chettur’s piece of art, it was prominent in the work that the children wanted to produce.
One group was to recreate a diary with a cut out viewpoint, overlooking a three-dimensional enclosed model with soundtrack.
A TV screen was to be the background of another, with a film of the school fish tank, combined with a model of a sinking ship.
An arena of mirrors was another group’s take, to give a multi-image impression to the viewer.
A Barque was created with the sails as pages from Benjamin Davies’ diary.
Plastic bottles formed another model with pages from the diary within, forming the hull of a Barque.
It was a great outcome of artworks and to top it all a ‘soundscape’ was created with whole class participation, to represent Benjamin in person, on a Barque, portraying an on board out at sea experience. Truly excellent.
Click here to listen to the soundscape.
David Marchant 2010
Locws Schools 2010: Hafod Primary School
Guided Tour of Locws Projects 2010/1:
‘…it is 89 days this morning since we left the Mumbles Head’ by Jackie Chettur
Swansea’s Civic Centre
The setting once again gave instant inspiration to the pupils as years 5/6 were all listening and eager to learn what this Locws project was all about. After a discussion regarding the Artworks, I was amazed at the intuition of the pupils and how they unravelled the Artworks using the literal clues within the work.
Lee asked if the work was associated with a time line, whilst Kyle asked whether it was about a sailor’s diary.
Josh also picked up on the fact that the copper plates on top of the viewfinders had dates and inverted commas on quotes as he read aloud, “it took them 281 days to get to Chile and back and one boat carried 24 tones of copper”.
Sophie as well stated that it was an entry from a sailor’s diary and Chloe asked if it was written in old English.
After revealing what the Artworks were about, the Children were really pleased with their perceptions.
I’m really looking forward to the workshop days back at school, as there seemed to be a lot of great ideas. The Children had plenty of inspiration ready to create their own artworks from Jackie Chettur’s installation.
David Marchant 2010
Locws Schools 2010: Glais Primary School
Guided Tour of Locws Projects 2010/1:
‘…it is 89 days this morning since we left the Mumbles Head’ by Jackie Chettur
Swansea’s Civic Centre
The children were instantly relaxed and open minded as they sat down on the grass ready to discuss “… its 89 days this morning since we left the Mumbles Head”.
After questioning the situation of where the artwork was placed, they already started to have some ideas that these object were to have an association with the sea. We were now ready to view what was inside.
Ellie asked, “Are the pictures based on light, dark, day and night and are they in a specific order telling us about a journey?”
Kyle asked, “Is it a picture, on a picture, on a picture?”
William asked, “Was the person who made the boats and models inside the viewfinders, a sailor”.
Alexandra asked if all of the bits shown in the viewfinders were the dangerous parts of a journey, and Ruby said, “Are they in order like in a diary”.
The workshop days should be fun as Leah was interested in making some sort of ship in a bottle and James wanted to make a film, so it will be really interesting to see how their ideas will have progressed by the time I go into school.
David Marchant 2010
Locws Schools Exhibition 2010
National Waterfront Museum
10th March – 23rd May 2010
Bishop Gore Comprehensive
Cwmbrwla Primary School
Daniel James Community School
Penyrheol Comprehensive
Penyrheol Primary School
This Locws Schools exhibition presents a collection of artwork by pupils from Bishop Gore Comprehensive, Cwmbrwla Primary School, Daniel James Community School, Penyrheol Comprehensive and Penyrheol Primary School, which were made as a response to artworks in Locws International ‘Art Across The City’ events in 2009.
Locws Schools is an educational art project run in conjunction with Arts in Education, which sees pupils from local schools guided around the ‘Art Across The City’ events by artist David Marchant who explains the ideas and processes of making the work. The pupils then create their own art projects inspired by what they have seen and learned.
Locws International events illustrate a broad range of contemporary artwork and are unique in that each of the artworks is made as a direct response to an aspect of Swansea’s culture, heritage, architecture or people. The artworks, created by international and Welsh artists using a variety of mediums, provide a unique educational opportunity and have inspired these pupils to create some very interesting and exciting responses.
With support from The Arts Council of Wales, The Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, The City & County of Swansea and The National Waterfront Museum.
LOCWS INTERNATIONAL: PRESS RELEASE 02.03.10
Locws Schools Art Exhibition Inspired by a Floating Shoe and Sir Frank Brangwyn’s Panels.
An exhibition of artwork by Swansea school pupils who responded to the 2009 Locws International ‘Art Across The City’ programme including an oversized pink shoe that floated in the Swansea Marina and the colourful windows at Swansea’s Brangwyn Hall, is to be held at the National Waterfront Museum, Oystermouth Road, Swansea from 10th March – 23rd May 2010.
The exhibition is to be opened by The Lord Mayor of Swansea, Councillor Alan Lloyd.
The Locws Schools exhibition showcases a collection of work by pupils from five schools and includes artworks made in response to Locws International’s commissions. In particular, a series of papier-mâché shoes and colourful mixed media panels are on display as well as drawings, photographs, sculptures and videos. Megan Broadmeadow’s ‘Ship-shape’ a pink floating shoe that was moored in Swansea Marina and Birmingham and Robinson’s ‘British Empire Panel Project’, the colourful windows that responded to Sir Frank Brangwyn’s panels seemed to capture the imagination of many school pupils inspiring them to create their own unique artworks some of which are on display.
Using Locws International events as the inspiration and in partnership with Art in Education, City and County of Swansea, Locws Schools offers opportunities for students to visit Locws International events and be guided through the exhibitions by lead artist David Marchant, who discusses some of the thinking behind the artworks and presents the ideas and processes of making site-specific work.
“It’s great that the students have the chance to see their work ‘out there’ on show in the eye of the public realm. They were very inspired by this project and the thought process behind the art, thus firing them up with enthusiasm, energy and a focus to produce the work. The project provided them with a great opportunity to create something different” said lead artist David Marchant.
Locws International events illustrate a broad range of contemporary artwork and are unique in that each of the artworks is made as a direct response to an aspect of Swansea’s culture, heritage, architecture or people. The artworks, created by international and Welsh artists using a variety of mediums, provide a unique educational opportunity and have inspired students to create some very interesting and exciting responses.
The schools that took part were Bishop Gore School, Daniel James Community School, Cwmbwrla Primary School, Penyrheol Primary School and Penyrheol Comprehensive School.
Locws International works with international and Welsh contemporary artists to create new visual artworks and projects that respond to the culture and heritage of the city of Swansea. With Support from The Arts Council of Wales, The Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, The City & County of Swansea and the National Waterfront Museum.
- Ends -
Notes to Editors: For further information or images contact Holly Davey, Project Manager on 01792 468979 or Holly@locwsinternational.com
Locws Schools 2009: Daniel James Community School
Guided Tour
We gazed at the beautiful colourful glass panels created by Birmingham and Robinson and the children instantly engaged with the artwork with suggestions of what a colourful transformation of what would otherwise be boring windows.
Colour and shape was the flavour of the morning.
We were very lucky to be greeted by a friendly Locws Live Guide who issued us with leaflets and arranged security guards Frank and Brian to give us a talk about the Brangwyn Panels and a tour of some of the Guildhall’s hidden treasures. The children were very impressed. Josh couldn’t believe that the paintings were priceless.
The situation seemed to be very calming and the children focused on drawing parts of the artworks, which inspired them.
David Marchant 2009
Drawing ideas based on Bermingham and Robinson’s new artwork on the windows of Swansea’s Brangwyn Hall
Looking at ‘The British Empire Panels’ inside Swansea’s Brangwyn Hall
Artworks
It was great to see the enthusiasm in the class when I arrived as the children were playing around with pixelated images on their computers.
Sophie, Katie and Sarah wanted to make a book on their Locws experience, taking abstractions from the artworks seen during the tour.
Josh, Corey and Jay decided to take a piece from Frank Brangwyn’s panels, in this case fruit, and create their own abstract fruit bowl using flat colour.
Chelsea and Ashley were interested in the illumination of colour and decided to make a prototype of a panel each, to be displayed in the window of the classroom.
Vicky was inspired by the windows and made her own panel from a variety of materials.
David Marchant 2009
Locws Schools 2009: Cwmbwrla Primary School
Guided Tour
A very quiet and focused group of children listened and stared while questions were asked about the new artwork on the windows that Birmingham and Robinson had created.
Frank, the security guard, kindly told us about the history of the Brangwyn panels. Then we discussed how the artists had gained inspiration from them for the design of their artwork on the windows.
While in the foyer of the Brangwyn Hall looking from the inside out, we saw the amazing shadows that the panels created on the floor. All of the children drew and created their own colourful panels gaining inspiration from what they saw.
“I love these panels they’re really colourful”, said Mackenzie.
David Marchant 2009
Looking at Bermingham and Robinson’s ‘The British Empire Panel Project’ on the windows of Swansea’s Brangwyn Hall
Drawing ideas based on the Brangwyn Panels and Bermingham and Robinson’s new artwork
Artworks
The children were very focussed on my arrival and we had a great discussion of ideas, which related back to day one.
The big inspiration for the children was the illumination of colour and the way it reflected onto the foyer floor.
After initial discussion we all thought it would be great to follow the idea of making some panels from acetate, to represent our own Bermingham and Robinson window, with all of the class making a panel each from their original designs taken from day one.
The children were again very focused on their artworks all day and loved the fact that their work was continually going on display on the classroom wall, as it was being produced.
There was a great wow factor when the sunlight hit the panel and gave a beautiful reflection onto the classroom carpet.
David Marchant 2009
Locws Schools 2009
In conjunction with Arts in Education, City and County of Swansea, Locws international has established an ongoing educational programme called Locws Schools that sees schools from the Swansea area take part in site-specific arts projects.
The projects are led by artist David Marchant and use Locws international events as inspiration. Locws Schools starts with a guided tour of the artworks at which David Marchant presents the artists inspiration behind the artworks and explains the ideas and processes of making the work. The second part of the project sees students create their own site-specific art projects inspired by what they have seen and learned, presented at each school in Locws Schools exhibitions.
Locws Schools 2009 once again facilitated this unique opportunity for school students to learn about and respond to ideas and artworks in Locws International 2009. The project provoked a wide range of responses from the students around contemporary political, social and cultural issues and elicited the production of over 30 dynamic and innovative artworks from over 100 students in a wide range of media including sculpture, performance, video and drawing from schools across Swansea.
The schools taking part in Locws Schools 2009 were Bishop Gore Comprehensive, Daniel James Community School, Penyrheol Comprehensive, Penyrheol Primary School and Trehafod
