2017–2018

BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art exhibits a changing programme of outstanding, inspiring contemporary art. The building is open 362 days a year and admission is free. Up to 500,000 people visit annually.

In addition to commissioning and producing exhibitions and performances, we deliver an extensive programme of learning and civic engagement. At its core, BALTIC aims to create greater understanding of the world through contemporary art that has power, relevance and meaning for individuals and communities. We work nationally and extensively throughout our region and prioritise working with the most disadvantaged; giving everyone a voice, enabling children, young people and adults living in marginalised communities to reach their full potential.

In 2015, BBC Children in Need supported BALTIC in developing this practice and approach, through BALTIC Stars; a 3 year programme for school pupils and their families that celebrates creativity, individuality, choice and achievement through contemporary art.

This publication documents BALTIC Stars’ third year.

During 2017-2018, 76 children and young people, based in 6 north east Special Needs Schools or Alternative Provisions, worked with BALTIC artists to create their own unique projects. Each school’s programme culminated in an exhibition that showcased their diverse range of ideas, imagination, processes and skills.

As a result of the programme, all 76 pupils saw increases in their self-esteem with 93% stating that their social skills had also developed as a result.

98% of participants agreed that their confidence had grown throughout BALTIC Stars and 77% told us they had developed their understanding of contemporary art.

Major, sustained impacts for children were reported by teachers as increased confidence, social skills (collaboration and teamwork) and self-esteem.

BALTIC would like to thank participating pupils, families and teachers from the following BALTIC Stars schools for their participation, enthusiasm and commitment:

- Beacon Hill School, North Tyneside- Benton Dene Special School,

Newcastle Upon Tyne- Croft Community School, County Durham- Dukes Secondary School, part of the NCEA Trust- Hope Wood Academy, Peterlee- Portland Academy, Sunderland

BALTIC would also like to recognise the support, inspiration, creativity and engagement our freelance artist team bring to our learning projects and the distinct and memorable experience that working with an artist offers. Thank you to Zoe Allen and Megan Randall.

Finally, we would like to thank BBC Children in Need whose generous support has made all this possible.

» STARS

Aurora

Beacon Hill School prides itself on offering a warm, nurturing and friendly learning environment where every child matters as an individual. They aim to deliver a creative and vibrant curriculum designed to meet every child’s needs, and ensure that attainment and progress is strong across the school.

As part of their BALTIC Stars project, artist Zoe Allen worked alongside teachers and adults to create a multi-sensory art activity for children with Profound and Multiple Learning Difficulties. (PMLD)

Pupils, parents and teachers chose to extend their creativity by experimenting with a range of unusual materials. The group chose to focus on a sensory exploration of the resources, using a “hands-on, hands-in” approach. Inspired by the colourful work of artists like Ugo Rondinone, Zoe invited the group to use their hands to push, pull, mix and spread the materials in front of them. Through this, the children explored the artistic possibilities of smearing glittery jelly, splatting fluorescent paint, crunching colourful cellophane, and sprinkling oats and pasta onto large black paper.

Each child created incredible works of art that closely resembled the beauty of the night sky. Reminiscent of exploding stars, or new galaxies being born, each piece of art is rich in colour and imagery.

Aurora is a celebration of the creative talents of its artists and a positive partnership between Beacon Hill School and BALTIC.

BEACON HILL SCHOOL, NORTH TYNESIDE

BLOCKTASTIC

Contemporary art is often a shared process with artists relying on the involvement and commitment of its audience in creating the artwork. A fundamental element in the production of Field for the British Isles, by Antony Gormley, was that children, parents and grandparents worked together, side by side making its clay figures. The interactive Obliteration Room by artist Yayoi Kusama relied on a gallery audience to transfer a pristine white room into an explosion of colour by placing coloured stickers on every surface over a few weeks.

Pupils from Benton Dene Special School were inspired by social interaction within contemporary art and placed it as the most important element of their BALTIC Stars project. Working with BALTIC artist Zoe Allen, pupil’s explored teamwork by playing board games, in particular the board game Bausack. Each pupil took turns in choosing small wooden blocks, using each piece to build a unique and collaborative structure.

The pupils were introduced to artist Colin Booth and his sculptures The Institute of Play and Streamline, two large-scale “building block” sculptures that are seemingly created through chance. The group were inspired by this experimental and playful approach, and over six workshops, created their own large-scale prints and sculptures following ‘rules of chance’ games.

BENTON DENE SPECIAL SCHOOL, NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE

BLOCKTASTIC presented a playful, architectural installation that was created by rules, play and the social interaction that was at the core of their project. Following their exhibition, pupils continued the legacy of their BALTIC Stars project back in school, asking fellow Benton Dene School pupils to socially engage with their artwork by adding more and more blocks to it through games.

Quilted Community

Croft Community School identifies itself as a school for their community, by fostering strong and positive links with the local people they serve. Community spirit, togetherness and inclusion are at the heart of their school values and they chose BALTIC Stars as a special opportunity to demonstrate these further.

The group started their BALTIC Stars journey by exploring key themes within their spiritual, moral, social and cultural curriculum with BALTIC artist Megan Randall. Each pupil created a series of one-minute self-portraits of the people who look after them, eat with them, live with them, play games with them, and go to school with them. These portraits were then recreated through a range of artistic practises including collage, sewing into paper, textiles, printing and sculpture.

Pupils were influenced by the work of contemporary artists El Anatsui, whose works sees everyday, simple materials transformed into large-scale installations and Laura Ellen Bacon, who uses raw materials to create vast, outside sculptures. The group also looked to the history of quilting, both as an art form and a way of social engagement. The latter determined the presentation method chosen by the group for their exhibition.

Quilted Community presented a rich tapestry celebrating the theme of community spirit and the important role each individual has within it.

CROFT COMMUNITY SCHOOL, COUNTY DURHAM

Chance

Contemporary art practice is rarely related to just one subject matter alone. Artists can connect their individual practises to subjects surrounding them, be they physical, metaphorical or to communal. Pupils and teachers from Duke’s Secondary School followed suit, choosing to combine contemporary art, ceramics, and mathematics for their BALTIC Stars project.

BALTIC artist Megan Randall is a contemporary ceramic artist and maker. She focused the group’s activities, not on the traditional methods and materials associated with making ceramics, but on games, throws of a dice, and chance. The group started their project exploring mathematic rules through drawing. Starting each activity with the roll of a dice, the group used the resulting numbers to work with addition, multiplication and factors. These mathematic approaches determined the length of lines students could draw, the type of shapes they could create and the number of tools they could use to produce two dimensional drawings.

Inspired by Megan’s contemporary ceramics practice, students distorted, ripped, cut and tore their mathematical drawings into collages filled with linear patterns and tessellations. Sections of these intricate and colourful artworks were transformed into Chance, a large-scale, ceramic installation and a celebration of contemporary art and mathematic practise together.

DUKE’S SECONDARY SCHOOL, PART OF THE NCEA TRUST, ASHINGTON

As a UNICEF Right Respecting School, Hope Wood Academy chose to use British Values as inspiration for their BALTIC Stars project.

Working with artist Megan Randall, teachers and adults created an immersive art experience for children with Profound and Multiple Learning Difficulties (PMLD).

British Values was interpreted to mean the experiences that someone living in Britain today may have. For this project, Megan focused on the sights, smells and sounds that children might experience on their way to school. As such, through a series of workshops, the children were taken on a journey, from home to school, using a range of smells, sounds, textures and tastes. Megan manipulated light and sound to give the impression of movement, with leaves and light being projected on a large canopy over the heads of the children. The pattering sound of rain was played to give the impression of travelling in a car during a storm.

After a story-telling session, children created and decorated clay houses. They used cooked spaghetti dipped in paint, moving and pushing to create swirling patterns on each house. Each resulting house is as unique as each child.

As a lasting legacy of this project, teachers from Hope Wood Academy have since co-delivered workshops with BALTIC, sharing creative approaches to working with children with PMLD.

HOPE WOOD ACADEMY, PETERLEE

Pupils from Portland Academy invited BALTIC artist Zoe Allen on an adventure to rediscover and re-imagine the world surrounding them.

Drawing, mapping, collecting, cataloguing, analysing, recording, observing, comparing… this group of explorers took inspiration from the environment, looking at objects and landscapes as if they had not seen them before. Pupils observed flowers, pebbles, leaves and soil, exploring ideas of evolution and the exciting possibilities of how landscapes can grow and transform. Through painting, wire modelling and sculpture, the group recreated their newly imagined landscapes in a series of two and three dimensional art forms.

The group were influenced by the work of contemporary artist Mark Dion, also described as a collector and explorer, who is well known for his use of specimens, drawings, sculptures and installations to tell the stories of natural histories and man-made environments. Like Mark, the group used their exploration methods to create stories of their discoveries.

Portland Academy exhibited a colourful and sculptural cabinet of curiosities encouraging wonder and inquisitiveness from its viewers.

PORTLAND ACADEMY, SUNDERLAND

Saturday 28 April 2018

To celebrate the achievements of the schools or oganisations that have taken part in BALTIC Stars in 2017/18, BALTIC invited pupils, families and teachers back to the gallery to take part in a celebratory Family Day.

Artists Megan Randall and Zoe Allen led a variety of activities inspired by BALTIC Stars projects. Creating illuminated buildings and artworks ruled by the throw of a dice were particularly popular and offered BALTIC Stars participants the opportunity to work together and learn from each other.

On the day, guests said “Hello” to a special guest; BBC Children In Need’s Pudsey Bear. Guests were invited to give a high five, shake a hand or pose for a picture to celebrate!

“I have loved working with pupils and teachers taking part in BALTIC Stars, together we have drawn with spaghetti, sculpted with clay, used robots to draw with, made artwork using chance and worked together to sew a giant quilt. Working with such a brilliant group of young artists who have leapt into activities developing art skills, becoming more confident and getting messy, has been awesome and inspiring.” Megan Randall, BALTIC Artist

“This was a wonderful experience for our young people with Profound and Multiple Learning Difficulties, who got so much out of the multisensory art sessions. The most memorable aspect was how immersive the sensory experience was, with the whole room scented with buckets of herbs, or lit with moving colours and silhouettes from the projector, or full of airborne spaghetti! The opening night of our exhibition was a fantastic experience for pupils, parents and staff; we were all bursting with pride.” Teacher, Hopewood Academy

“It always amazes me to see the commitment and willingness from all participants to engage with and learn from contemporary art and artists. It has been exciting to see the children and young people grow as artists on their creative journeys, both as individuals and collaboratively, which has culminated in six wonderful exhibitions.” Leanne Alldred, BALTIC Assistant Producer (Schools and Colleges)

BALTIC STARS FAMILY DAY

FREE ENTRY Open daily 10.00–18.00

BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art South Shore Road, Gateshead NE8 3BA +44 (0)191 478 1810 info@balticmill.com

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