THE HALF-LIFE PROJECT

Overview

The aim of this project was to encourage Year 5 children to use drawing as a tool to explore and describe their local environments. The project took as a starting point the reluctance of children to draw and their familiarity with technology through hand held devices like mobile phones and gameboys.

Two Year 5 classes from different local schools made visits to the Whitechapel Gallery to see the 'Temporary Accommodation' show, in particular Simon Faithfull's work. The children were introduced to the artist's work and then divided into small groups where they discussed individual drawings and made guesses about the objects they represented.

The schools were Ben Johnson School in the London borough of Tower Hamlets, and Gallions School in the London borough of Newham. They were given the use of two Palm Pilots. The children were taught how to use these to make simple observational drawings of the school's surroundings. They were instructed not to draw a map of the school, but to select details which would act as clues to tell the other school something about themselves.

 

 

Simon talking to pupils in his space

showing pupils how to use the palm pilots

Each week over a four week period, the teachers gave pupils the chance to draw, first inside the dassroom, then in the school at large, and finally in the school grounds. The drawings were then downloaded and emailed to the other school.

Once a week the artist visited each school. The email was opened and images from the other school discussed, then they were printed out and pinned to a blank wall or screen in the classroom. Over the course of the project this blank space filled with images of the 'mystery' school. In this way, each school built up a bank of images - both their own and those of the 'mystery' school. At the end of the project, the schools had a chance to meet and discuss the project and what they had understood about each other from their drawings.