Chol’s 2024 Partnership with Museums (Part 2)

Imaginary Communities at The Cooper Gallery

Following on from the success of last year’s partnership with Chol the Experience Barnsley team were keen to co-design some self-led education resources to be used by teachers with their classes in the future for short flexible sessions within the Cooper Gallery. After further discussion it was agreed that this was a fantastic opportunity to implement Chol’s Imaginary Communities approach to allow students the opportunity to explore the content of the gallery, whilst working on a variety of learning skills. 

This linked well with the aspirations of the school, Kings Oak Primary Learning School, Wombwell, who were keen for the project to have a skills based focus with an emphasis on personal skills. They were excited about how we could explore the collections at the gallery to inspire the children’s ideas and creativity. Kings Oak have been a long term partner on Chol’s Caring and Creative programme and worked in partnership with Chol on a number of additional projects. Julie Meiner, Co-Head Teacher, has a strong vision of arts education and advocates for the use of arts within the curriculum and development of the children at Kings Oak.

The arts allow children to take ownership over their learning. Chol enables them to take risks as there is no right or wrong way.

Julie Meiner, Co-Head Teacher, Kings Oak Primary School

As all partners shared an interest in the role of arts-education in nurturing well-being and self-esteem we decided to explore the gallery through the pedagogy and lens of Imaginary Communities.

The project began in the Year Five classrooms at Kings Oak where Lauren Ash, Chol’s Schools and Education Lead (and long term Imaginary Communities lead practitioner) led an Imaginary Communities session exploring storytelling. Lauren had brought along a plain bottle with a piece of paper inside, after asking the class for their ideas as to what it could be, they opened it up with much anticipation and read the note. 

The class were then guided through a number of creative tasks, each with the aim to help the class imagine and build the world of the imaginary island. Within an Imaginary Communities this stage is known as the Dramatic Setting. During this stage the imaginary setting for the story is co-created, using openness and a sense of acceptance for all ideas. We continue investing in the notion of equal playmakers and co-create the world together, acknowledging all ideas and therefore giving them value. This stage helps to develop a strong sense of ownership over the setting that is created.

Each individual contributed to the ideas and working together, the class, teacher and artist decided what to include in their imaginary world accepting each other’s contributions and building up a detailed island world with a host of unusual, creative and individual locations and characters. By the end of the classroom session each class had an idea of what was on this island and were excited to continue their story-making at The Cooper Gallery the following week.

The class buzzed with excitement as they entered the gallery space and were keen to find out what they would be doing whilst there with numerous pleas to Lauren who was joined by Ruth Dyer, Chol’s illustrator and designer. The Gallery session began with a treasure hunt as the class worked in small teams to solve clues. This allowed them to freely explore the work in the gallery with an additional focus to keep their engagement and develop their problem solving skills.

When the class had revealed the final clue was ‘Build Your Island’ they worked with Lauren and Ruth to recap the session from the previous week. Remembering the message in the bottle the class decided to re-read the message, but when the bottle was opened they quickly realised it was a completely different message than the one they received at school.

Intrigued and captivated by this ‘magical’ mysterious new note they were motivated to follow the instructions on the clue to build their island inspired by the work on display in the gallery.  This involved further exploration of the artwork, to decide how they would travel to the island and what different areas would look like. Working in small groups the class utilised their communication, team working, problem solving and creative skills to create large life sized collages of the island, each focusing on a different area.

Dramatic Setting is the second stage within the five stages of Imaginary Communities and the perfect focus for the outcomes of the project due to its natural alignment with visual communication and language. For the class at Kings Oak Primary School, creating their own composition, inspired by others, was an opportunity to put their skills they had been developing into practice. The students worked in groups communicating their ideas with ease, once created the proud artists confidentially presenting their finished work to the rest of the class.

Chol are excited to build on the learning gained from this project and develop educational resources the gallery can promote as part of their self led education visits for schools. We are looking forward to partnering with the team at the museums for a third year on our Caring and Creative Schools Programme.