Belonging — Exploring Photography as a Collaborative Tool in Gallery Education

BELONGING Exploring Photography as a Collaborative Tool in Gallery Education

BELONGING Exploring Photography as a Collaborative Tool in Gallery Education

Welcome to Belonging, a publication reflecting upon the collaboration between Open Eye Gallery (Liverpool) and Whitby High School (Ellesmere Port). This publication explores how photography and the gallery can be used as a tool for agency and aspiration in creative, cultural education.

a pivotal opportunity for the gallery to explore how co-authored and collaborative approaches to photography can exist within the current education system.

The project was formed of multiple partners, Open Eye Gallery (OEG), Whitby High School and research collaborators, Curious Minds and Liverpool Hope University.

Curious Minds, the Arts Council England bridge organisation, brought the pair together through their strategic ambition ‘to improve the lives of children and young people by increasing opportunities for their active participation in arts and culture’¹. This pairing was a result of understanding the gallery and school shared common ground in their overarching aims and values.

•

Whitby High School was keen to explore if:

•

student engagement and levels of aspiration could be improved, photography might prove an accessible tool for increased visual literacy and communication

Both hoped to test whether exchange of knowledge would benefit staff: teachers developing an increased awareness of photographers and their working practices; gallery staff gaining greater insight into pedagogical approaches undertaken in school.

Open Eye Gallery has over the past three years, tested and explored models and methods of working in and with schools across the region. We aim to learn and develop projects alongside schools, exploring what the gallery has to offer teachers and students, and what one can learn from the school about the role a gallery can play. The research project was

This publication represents the multiple voices involved in the project, with contributions from all partners. We highlight to what extent initial aims and objectives were met and analyse to what extent our participatory and collaborative approaches supported or challenged practical delivery of the project. We hope the publication can be used as a reference tool for other cultural and educational organisations to reflect upon similar collaborations.

2 | Belonging

¹ Curious Minds vision statement, 2012

PROJECT TIMELINE

PHASE 1 RECONNAISSANCE

25 May ‘18 1st CERI Research day – Writing of ethics

18 Jul ‘18 Meeting at Ellesmere Port Library

13 Sept ‘18 CERI - Curious Minds Conference at Liverpool Hope

8 Oct ‘18 Initial planning meeting with Creative Producer Andy and Lead Teacher Sophie

1 Nov ‘18 Interviews of OEG staff with Chris

5 Nov ‘18 Intro to year 12’s at Whitby High School

30 Nov ‘18 Year 12’s gallery tour/workshop

7 Dec ‘18 Data analysis session

18 Dec ‘18 Planning meeting at OEG

RECONNAISSANCE Establishing the Partnership, the Roles and the Brief

Research partner Chris Robson, described the first phase of our project as the ‘reconnaissance’. The gallery, researcher and school spent time together, creating a project framework to suit all partners’ agendas with clear roles from the outset.

Whilst teacher Sophie and Open Eye Gallery’s (OEG) Creative Producer Andy would take leading roles, staff members from the wider team fed into the process and delivery, widening expertise and providing alternative perspectives to engage all participants. This included inviting OEG’s Director Sarah and Curator Thomas to critique students work as the project progressed.

Open Eye Gallery practices co-authored models of working, consequently, the research process created opportunities for all partners to play the role of researcher in some way. Abandoning the traditional model in which the academic partner purely ‘observed and reflected’, OEG’s Head of Engagement Liz worked collaboratively with the researcher, gallery

and school staff to devise and deliver all research elements of the programme.

The research process became a journey of collaboration, exploring multiple perspectives.

A good example of this iterative collaboration was the development of the brief for the students work, which came out of the first student visit to the gallery - exploring the exhibition, Where Love is Illegal. Students and staff discussed the exhibition, with general agreement that the need to belong and be accepted in the world, was a fundamental theme. The concept of belonging offered the students an opportunity to explore – and share – key places, people, interests and objects that embodied their own sense of inclusion.

Recognising that a set curriculum can often limit how a student approaches a project, OEG staff hoped the open theme would better enable creative thinking and understanding of how images can communicate. Students were encouraged to take risks and try something new.

Belonging | 5

The first gallery activity also included a light touch practical research activity, inviting students to place themselves on a physical scale of 1-10 in response to: How confident do you currently feel using photography and cameras?

How creative do you feel when you use photography?

How confident do you feel in describing yourself as a photographer?

How much do you think photography is a practical and technical skill?

How likely are you to want to carry on with photography as a profession when you leave school?

This exercise enabled the students to reflect on their current relationship to photography. It acted as a useful tool for school and gallery staff to consider a starting point for future research questions and potential priorities for student development to weave into the rest of the project.

How likely are you to want to carry on with photography or new media at a University?

How likely do you think you will need to use photography in your future career/job, whatever type of job it is?

6 | Belonging

PHASE 2 DEVELOPMENT

14 Jan ‘19 Introducing brief to students at Whitby High

5-6 Feb ‘19 CERI writing retreat

11 Feb ‘19 Progress update at Whitby High with Andy & Sarah

11 Mar ‘19 2nd progress update - Focus group with Liz

22 Mar ‘19 Deadline for images

25 Mar ‘19 Andy, Liz, Thomas selected images for exhibition

16-17 Apr ‘19 Install - including peer to peer interviews

18 Apr ‘19 Exhibition Opening

DEVELOPMENT Developing Individual Ideas and Visual Responses

The development phase included initial introduction of the brief and follow up progress sessions, known as a ‘critical reviews’ of students’ work. It revealed both key successes and challenges inherent in collaborative working between the gallery and school.

The brief was introduced by OEG’s Creative Producer and Head of Engagement, who also shared their backgrounds in photography and job roles.

Whitby High staff fed back on working with the gallery team.

“It is important that the project is delivered by someone else other than just me, as the students take an external person more seriously, it inspires them as they can sometimes get a little lazy / bored with the same faces and same way of working”. (TL) Subsequent progress sessions were the students’ first opportunity to showcase their photographic work to someone outside of their educational environment.

This proved both useful and challenging for students.

Student L had a number of challenges throughout the process, especially when having to speak in front of the class and

present his work. L shared, “during this project I have learned that I am a lot more confident than I thought I was when I’m forced to be. This surprised me as I’ve literally never been confident for as long as I can remember, I’ve always been the quiet one, who’s mostly kept himself to himself (and friends/family of course), but this project has kind of forced me to open up a bit around what my goals are etc.”

Student R further shared, “in the future, I will ask for advice and some constructive criticism, because I actually found this quite useful overall.”

Crucially, progress sessions provided deadlines for students to work towards, necessitating reflection on the feedback offered, eventually leading to the submission of their final selection of works for printing and exhibiting in the gallery.

Due to staff illness, a session was missed which would have offered students more targeted input and guidance.

Without this additional time, gallery staff adopted a more curatorial lead on the final selection of works. Discussions on narrative and storytelling through a series of photographs were offered and became more tangible during the physical install of work in the gallery space.

Belonging | 9

Students embraced the opportunity to physically install their own photographic work in the gallery, not simply from a practical point of view but from a contextual one. Student H, took a considered approach to the sequencing and positioning of her photographs, inviting other students to offer guidance on which order images should be placed to create a stronger narrative. Before installing the work in a physical space she had considered her photographs individually, on the wall she reflected on them as visual storytelling.

Phase 2 ultimately highlighted the importance of development of ideas

12 | Belonging

through visual literacy, not simply on progressing the ‘formal’ quality of a single image. We recognised how time restrictions can affect key milestones for students which although often unavoidable can be factored in for future project structures.

Students who were able to embrace their work from a visual storytelling point of view, felt more confident in their rationale and overall felt more connected to the work as self-expression and creativity.

As student R commented as their most positive reflection of the project, “I enjoyed experimenting with creating a feeling, emotion or story through photography”.

PHASE 3 REVIEW

2 May ‘19 CERI presentation preparation at Open Eye Gallery

8 May ‘19 CERI TATE event

8 May ‘19 Presentation with Chris, Andy, Sophie, Danielle and Zoe

3 June ‘19 Last Whitby High School visit - final focus groups and walk your journey

8 July ‘19 Final interviews with Open Eye Galllery staff

REVIEW “Seeing how everybody had interpreted the brief in such a different way enabled me to appreciate everybody’s work for what it was rather than the usual comparisons that happen with work under the same brief.”

Student H

‘Belonging’ opened on 18th April 2019, taking over all main gallery spaces. This was an opportunity for students to reflect upon their achievements both individually and as a group. It allowed students to experience the context of showcasing and promoting their work to the public. Students were encouraged to invite friends and family to the exhibition, and on the day all sixteen students attended.

Speeches included a member of Chester and Cheshire West Council, Headteacher, the Director of Programmes from Curious Minds and a student from Whitby High School. They shared their thoughts on the work and the importance of cultural education from their own perspective. It was a particular highlight to see one of the students speak with confidence and pride alongside her fellow speakers. This supported the project aim of using the gallery as a platform for students to feel empowered and to take ownership of the space.

At the opening of the exhibition a number of students shared how positive it was to

hear compliments about their work and how their confidence had increased as a result.

As a collaborative team, we were given the opportunity to share our research process as part of the CERI conference at TATE Liverpool. The conference enabled those engaged in cultural education and/ or research to share findings, methods and insights into practice. Responding to the statement “Exploring photography and the role of the gallery as a tool for agency and aspiration in creative education” our team set about sharing the collaborative process and its impact on students and staff.

Belonging | 15

Given the positive impact of the student’s speech at the gallery previously, we felt It was important that students were contributing. Two students from the project presented at the conference alongside the gallery’s Creative Producer, our research partner and the class teacher. They shared their journey, stating that working with a gallery had given them an opportunity they never thought possible. They were also able to share challenges that were similar to aspects of other projects presented by fellow delegates.

To conclude the journey, the team delivered a number of final research tasks with the students, including walk your journey - a performative reenactment of the project from beginning to end - focus groups and class discussion. Reflection was an integral part of the process and it was important

16 | Belonging

for the students to be able to explore this in as many different ways as possible.

What became clear, is that a mutual relationship and trust between researchers and students had developed – evident in increased student confidence in sharing their views in diverse ways.

The final task asked students to share their experience in only 3 words.

Here are some of their responses: Proud Thankful Content Opportunity Rewarding Achievement Confidence Worth it

CONCLUSION AND KEY LEARNING

The project embodied what it means to truly engage in inclusive collaboration. It also cemented a long-term partnership between a cultural organisation and school. Time constraints clearly affected some aspects of delivery – something we’ll address in future. What became clear through the process was that “the goal of exhibiting in Open Eye Gallery provided a powerful extrinsic motivation for every young person involved” (Chris Robson).

In this sense the project really highlighted value in cultural and education sectors collaborating ambitiously, regardless of whether students began feeling confident or not in their subject matter. All students pushed themselves to consider and develop their work for the public exhibition.

gallery was learning from the teacher. For us this is a key success, fulfilling an initial aim for the project – a two-way exchange of learning between School and Gallery.

The class teacher not only felt that her confidence in photography had increased but that the project has supported her to learn more about the needs and abilities of each young person. This insight shared with the gallery team offered additional personalisation when giving feedback to students about their work. The teacher was not simply learning from the gallery; the

Belonging reflected a real journey for the students, staff, gallery and researcher.

100% of students completed the project with work to showcase to the public and all demonstrated an increased engagement with the subject matter and/ or new ways of understanding photography as its own visual language to share with the world.

The opportunity to deliver Belonging under the framework of a research project, offered essential critical reflection and analysis throughout. The research was a valued part of the process of learning for all parties, and future projects will embrace reflective delivery methods and techniques used. Both the class teacher and Open Eye Gallery recognised that action research provides enhanced communication, development of ideas and perceptions, not only for the delivery team but for the students themselves.

Belonging | 19

KEY STATS & FINDINGS

Belonging was a year long collaborative photography and research project between partners Open Eye Gallery (Liverpool), staff and students of Whitby High School (Ellesmere Port), Liverpool Hope University and Curious Minds.

This infographic highlights some of the key stats and findings from the project, exploring the potential role of photography as a tool for shared agency in gallery education,

16 successful completion of the project from development of ideas to producing new work for a public exhibition by each young person

students engaged over 18 individual photography and / or research sessions over the space of 9 months to complete the project.

2261 93% members of the public visited the exhibition over 10 days at Open Eye Gallery

20 | Belonging

of participating students identified a significant development in their photographic confidence

AUDIENCE & VISITOR COMMENTS It is lovely and refreshing to see local talent exhibited WHITBY HIGH STUDENTS It’s so surreal to see our work on the wall but we are really proud of what we have produced and enjoyed working with Andy (OEG Creative Producer).”

It is great to see young people being involved in photography”

A real area where project partners saw a shift in students’ development was in the ability to consider visual storytelling within their work.

Student R commented that their most positive reflection of the project was in...

...experimenting with creating a feeling, emotion or story through photography”

Belonging | 21

AUDIENCE & VISITOR COMMENTS For 50% of the students, the project itself had led to their participation in the photography course...

wanted to extend my creativity

take an opportunity

I was giving up

once in a lifetime opportunity

Others were more ambivalent...

“May as well”

“l did GCSE”

more interested in photography through the project”

For these students the project was transformational, ambivalence shifted to pride, achievement and for some a real passion as they became...

it helped me to love it

gained a massive interest and want to continue the passion maybe in university” 22 | Belonging

Students made specific reference to the expertise of gallery staff and were cognisant of the value of this.

Text written by Andy Yates and Liz Wewiora 2020

The thing I enjoyed the most is probably the criticism and getting different opinions from someone who I haven’t normally spoken to or shown my images to�