Chopping Up Vegetables

With so much time at the moment spent trying to organise the tours of existing projects or trying to set in motion new projects, it is refreshing to be working on a bit of art again. That we were collaborating with a bunch of 8 and 9 year olds in Forestdale Primary School makes things even more refreshing. On Tuesday we reached the edge of chaos as 34 of them got stuck into building fantasy cities out of fruit and vegetables. The results were great, but looked a lot better ‘live’ than they do in photographs. On Thursday we go to the markets together, check out City Centre architecture and finish the day looking at Birmingham from the top of a Ferris wheel.

This project culminates in a day presenting a load of dioramas made by the kids on stalls in the Bull Ring Open Market. That promises to be a hairy; we’re still scratching our heads over how to make it work for the kids as well as their art. I love the markets but looking at them from the perspective of an 8 Year Old stall holder it suddenly seemed very loud, chaotic and intimidating.

Much respect goes to Duncan Watson – Year 4’s teacher – he’s doing a great job of coping with us and them. I suspect we are learning more about teaching from him than he is learning about chopping up vegetables from us.

James



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