GrowinG Future innovators - ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative ...

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“Supertoys”, by Kahve-
Society. Photograph
courtesy of Arnolfini,
Bristol, UK.
leadership. The program exemplars that
follow, whilst somewhat artificially separated
into these five areas, reveal how these
innovation competencies appear to be
encouraged within the arts-led learning
initiatives for young people and schools.
Creativity:
Growing future Innovators: a scoping study
Super Toys, a workshop and exhibition by
Arnolfini, suggests creativity at work when
children were offered the opportunity to
construct interesting and fun new toys from
old ones. The multi-art centre’s Education
Officer, Helen Davies, describes the concept
for this program and its long incubation:
Super Toys began as a school’s project.
Artists from The Kahve Society, worked
with young people to reconstruct old toys
and construct “super toys.” The initial
premise was recycling. You bring in your old
toys, you take them apart and you make
new toys. There was always the intention
that this project should come back into
the gallery. So last year, Super Toys
returned to Arnolfini incorporating a group
exhibition and a toy factory. Elements were
participatory; visitors could make super toys
for themselves. Alongside that there was a
group exhibition that explored themes of
play, robotics and interaction design.
It’s interesting that an exhibition can be
initiated through a learning and interaction
project. Altogether Super Toys probably ran
with the work that we did in schools for five
years prior to the exhibition. A long time in
the making.
The Kahve Society ran a pilot in London
and from there we worked extensively in
Bristol. It was a longer-term commitment
with Bristol schools that started off with one
school, Headley Park.
For the actual exhibition, we brought in
other schools. We recruited young people
to work in the galleries as stewards. They
were trained and located in the toy factory
as facilitators. They rose to the challenge.
During their time at Arnolfini, their increased
confidence in working with the general public
led to an expansion of their role into public
gallery tours for visitors.
Self-efficacy:
The artist in residence project Transitions,
curated by the Camden Arts Centre in
London is perhaps exemplary of how creative
endeavour can build self-efficacy in young
people. Each year, the project works with
three local primary schools and the secondary
school they feed into, engaging students
who are graduating from one to the other.
Research has shown this transition period to
be one of the most significant times in the
lives of young people for developing qualities
such as self-esteem and social confidence,
impacting strongly on levels of achievement
and wellbeing in school as well as throughout
life. Anna Vass, Camden’s Education Program
Programmer, notes, “Transitions is an incredibly
reflective project and involves tracking the
feelings and experiences of young people as
they go through that change, because it’s such
an incredibly powerful moment where there’s a
lot of uncertainty and inciting of questions.”