Positioning children as artists through a ceramic arts project and exhibition: children meaning making

This article describes a ceramic arts research project that provided children with opportunities for meaning making using bone china clay, a medium with strong cultural and historical links to the city where the research took place. The children were positioned as artists and their work was curated and presented for exhibition by an international ceramic artist, affording equal status to their work as that of adults. Findings identified that children made meaning based on lived experiences, popular culture, unique family and cultural heritage, and school identities. We also acknowledge that adult attitudes and school schedules can both enable and limit children’s creativity. We further assert that the professional exhibition validated children’s processes, competence, cultural funds of knowledge and agency.The exhibition produced as a result of this research project was funded by the Vice Chancellors Ideas Forum from the University of Derby

"I am a certain person when I am here, it is not who I am": Refugee voices within communities of change.

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Earth, water, air: Children meaning making: Using ceramics to give form to children’s ideas

This research project involved 120 young children aged 5-7 years old in ceramic workshops creating individual artefacts to form a final exhibition piece. The exhibition was curated by an internationally recognised ceramic artist and exhibited in an historic building in a disadvantaged inner city location to encourage social inclusion and access to the arts by the local community. Inspiration was taken from a permanent ceramic window exhibition at Royal Crown Derby Museum, completed by the artist during a residency in 2000. Royal Crown Derby have been producing bone china ceramics since 1750 and are currently one of the original factories still producing bone china in Britain. The children took inspiration from the ceramic window installation and artefacts within the museum for their designs through observations, drawings and photos. Further inspiration was gained from visits to Arboretum Park, the first publicly owned, landscaped, recreational park in England, opened in 1840 using donated land by Joseph Strutt. The project included children from the local community with a history of exclusion and isolation from cultural institutions and local heritage. The aim of the project was therefore to bring together children, community, local business and cultural institutions and university students through engagement in a collaborative arts project to facilitate access to Royal Crown Derby museum and other cultural institutions. The project gave value to children’s own ideas and supported their creativity, identity and agency. Early findings indicate that barriers exist within the UK education system which mitigate against children’s full participation in the arts and cultural activities, including time constraints due to curriculum pressure and expected outcomes. The location of the exhibition encouraged public reconsideration of the value and placing of children’s art by challenging the idea of separate spaces for the display of adults and children products.Vice Chancellors ideas forum bid

Working together.

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Engaging the local community in cultural heritage through a children’s ceramic arts exhibition

This chapter describes a research project which aimed to increase social inclusion and access to the arts and cultural heritage, through a children’s ceramic arts exhibition. The exhibition was curated by an internationally recognised ceramic artist and located in an historic building within an inner city park in Derby, England, behind a culturally historic ceramics factory and museum. The project further aimed to reposition children as artists and heritage makers by valuing their ideas, creativity, identity and agency. Data was collected through interviews and through comments from the exhibition visitor’s book. Findings indicate that barriers exist within the UK education system which limit children’s full participation in the arts and cultural activities. The exhibition encouraged social inclusion and contested the idea of separate spaces for the display of adults and children products, but most significantly, children were repositioned as active agents in the construction of their cultural heritage.N/