Creative Learning – McManus Creative Learning

Reconnecting and Re-visiting Blether TayGether!

May 21, 2021May 14, 2021Creative LearningLeave a comment

For this week’s blog post, we’re taking the opportunity to re-visit our recent ‘Reconnect’ work with the Blether TayGether sessions, developed for a group who are supported by Alzheimer Scotland in Dundee.

Throughout the programme the sessions were developed to support engagement with the museum collection and exhibitions and provide a bespoke and personal learning and engagement experience to combat the social isolation that this group, and many of us have experienced over the past year.

Over the 10 project sessions, we explored our current temporary exhibitions Time and Tide: The Transformation of the Tay and A Love Letter to Dundee: Joseph McKenzie Photographs 1964-1987, had two session with our exhibition curators to learn how these exhibitions are developed and curated and worked through the project ‘Memory Journal’, alongside listening to clips from the museum’s oral history collection to support and facilitate discussions and sharing of personal stories and memories.

Screengrab of Blether TayGether session.

Now these sessions have finished, we’re delighted to be able to share some feedback from our participants and project team.

Participant Feedback

Interactive, helped to facilitate conversation.

Jogged my memories and good for sharing experiences and stories.

[I] liked the dancing and social life theme.

[I enjoyed] the social space. [I was] lovely chatting with people and meeting people. We’ve all been so isolated, in these four walls.

Learning more about Dundee, which we didn’t know about.

Memories, made me think about all the places I’d been, reflected on my own memories.

Interesting listening to other people [and] reflecting on my own memories that related to [each] topic.

Staff Feedback

[The sessions] have changed my perspective on what our tea and blether group can be.

Group enjoyed the curatorial input from Anna Robertson and David Lampard.

We all agreed that there were some challenges when working across digital video platforms. Participants and staff felt that the technical side of working remotely presented some difficulties. We encountered some problems getting into the Microsoft Teams meetings, muting and un-muting microphones, microphone feedback and sound distortion, and some found it difficult to read facial expressions and body language to make sure that people didn’t speak over one another. However in general, participants felt that the social connection and friendships that were developed were more important to support and no-one was put off too much by the technology.

Keep up-to-date with ‘Reconnect’ through our online and social media channels as the project progresses!

The project has been made possible thanks to Art Fund support and additional funding from Tayside Healthcare Arts Trust.

Home-Start Reconnect – Special Delivery! Creative Books & Art Packs are Delivered to the Family Group!

May 7, 2021May 5, 2021Creative LearningLeave a comment

Back in January, we started working with the Home-Start Family Group. The group expressed their feelings of disconnectedness and felt that they needed some help with creative activities to try and regain some of the contact that had been lost throughout the first national lockdown. This was done through weekly online consultations with the group. We wanted to create a resource that the participants could use at home with their children and provide all the materials that they would need along the way. We discussed what kind of activities would most benefit the participant’s children and what support they needed at home in order to build the package of activities.

We looked at the problems faced by the participant’s children that the group themselves had identified; the parents in the group had highlighted that the children were having great difficulty with expressing how they felt during lockdown. This age group were hit particularly hard during the lockdown and felt that they lacked the creative inspiration gained from things such as messy play and toddler sensory classes which were all cancelled. The parents also felt isolated and lacked the confidence to do some of these things in their own home, some of them becoming parents in the pandemic. This was also carried over to the children who were separated from their peer group and from their families.

All the materials for the activities were delivered in a canvas tote bag which the participants can then use again. Similarly, many of the activities included are geared around participants being able to make their own art materials; salt dough recipe, edible finger paints, play dough, all of which are reusable and environmentally friendly. Several of the activities are designed to be completed outdoors; and this is to encourage the families to get out and explore their city and surroundings. This impacted positively on their mental health and wellbeing.

Alongside the materials, participants received the ‘Big Creative’ book which is a collaborative effort between the Home-start participants, the Creative Learning Team and the LACD Design team to tailor a learning resource and journal that is specific to the group’s needs. It will also be used to form part of a legacy for Reconnect, a community project spanning several organisations aiming to combat Covid-19 isolation.

The group were keen to use materials that they perhaps hadn’t had much experience with before such as clay, textile and magnetic tape, learning new skills along the way. We were keen to combine art, science and nature to create an enriching home-learning experience that families could engage with at home and outside. We were eager to show them that making art isn’t just about buying expensive materials at a time when a lot of people may face financial concerns. By using a lot of recycled materials, we were also teaching the children the importance of reusing or conserving resources. We began to open up their imagination by using household objects to make marks; sticks, leaves, stones and flower petals for collage and even experimented with ice, snow and food colouring to make sculptures inspired by David Batchelor’s ‘Waldella, Dundee’ in The McManus.

With the McManus being closed to the public until very recently, the group expressed that they had missed the opportunity to visit, in particular to see the temporary exhibitions ‘Time and Tide’ and ‘A Love Letter to Dundee’. Bringing the exhibitions to them virtually through the ‘Big Creative’ book and online sessions, we have tried to remedy this. During our weekly virtual sessions, the group are given the opportunity to ask questions about our exhibitions and are given support to develop their knowledge and understanding of their favourite objects in the museum, giving them the confidence to share this with their children.

The ‘Big Creative’ book is intended to be a guidebook that parents will use again and again or pass on to friends and family for them to use with their children. In addition to this, the book serves as a memento for the children and their families of this period in time, with pages dedicated to documenting their thoughts and feelings during the pandemic. The intention behind each activity and challenge was to allow parents to create alongside their children; to strengthen bonds, enhance moods in a positive way, improve speech, develop fine motor skills and to encourage and motivate the parents to continue on with these activities long after the sessions have finished. This resource is as much for the parents as it is for their children.

The project has been made possible thanks to Art Fund support and additional funding from Tayside Healthcare Arts Trust.

ST/ART Group – Loving Photography

April 9, 2021April 7, 2021Creative LearningLeave a comment

Today we’re taking the opportunity to have another look at the amazing photography work that has been created by the ST/ART group, as part of our ‘Reconnect’ project. We previously profiled the group in an earlier post and are delighted to re-visit their work and share some more of their photographs with you.

The ST/ART group have been focusing on creating their own body of photographic work, inspired by the work and photographic essays of Dundee-based photographer and tutor Joseph McKenzie and our temporary exhibition ‘A Love Letter to Dundee: Joseph Mckenzie Photographs 1964 – 1987’.

Supported by the Creative Learning Team, Chris Kelly from THAT and freelance artist David Scott, the group meet weekly through Zoom for their ‘Reconnect’ sessions. They have now completed their art works and have been able to capture their images using cameras or mobile phones, either from home or when out for daily exercise, in keeping with current COVID-19 restrictions. Here is a small selection of images by each artist that we are delighted to be able to share in the blog.

Participant Feedback

I enjoyed absolutely everything, taking pictures, getting outside, learning new skills, was buzzing with ideas, images, took thousands of pics lol. Who knew I could do this, I’ve shocked myself, always loved photography but never knew I could be this good.

Being part of the programme has given me a push to leave the house and interact with the world and begin to see the beauty of life again. The sense of accomplishment each week, completing a series of photos had a huge benefit to my wellbeing and seeing & hearing others enjoyment in my photos definitely was a boost to my self-esteem.

This was an exceptionally well organised and run programme. A good mixture of learning and showcasing our own work. Given the pandemic restrictions, I cannot think of how this could have been done differently.

Creative Learning Team Feedback

At this point in time, it’s so important for cultural venues and teams to reach out and provide high-quality creative engagement with groups. Working with the ST/ART group through the ‘Reconnect’ project has been an absolute joy.

Week by week, the creative tasks led by David Scott helped encourage everyone to be more creative, enjoy being outdoors, and share their new-found skills and work with each other. We watched each of the group blossom in confidence, develop new photographic skills and create strong, thought-provoking body of images inspired by both the museums exhibition ‘A Love Letter to Dundee’ and in response to the world around them.

We will shortly be launching our online, digital gallery where you can see all 60 photographs that have been created by the group, currently hosted here https://davidpscott.com/loving-photography/.

Stay tuned on our social media channels to get the link for the gallery once it goes live and for further news about ‘Reconnect’!

The project has been made possible thanks to Art Fund support and additional funding from Tayside Healthcare Arts Trust.

Re-interpreting Joseph McKenzie – ST/ART Group

March 5, 2021February 26, 2021Creative LearningLeave a comment

Today we are profiling one of our ‘Reconnect’ project participant groups, the ST/ART Photography Group who are supported by THAT (Tayside Healthcare Arts Trust). THAT was set up in 2002 to develop the arts in healthcare across Tayside, working to improve the health and wellbeing of people with a variety of Long Term Conditions and enhance the quality of healthcare environments.

One of the enormous challenges that we, as a team, have faced throughout our initial development and ongoing delivery of ‘Reconnect’, has been how to connect to participants who are unable to visit the museum in person due to closures, and how to support those who may be housebound and/or isolated due to the current COVID-19 restrictions. Another challenge has been how can we provide, deep and meaningful learning and engagement opportunities when we are unable to meet in person. We decided to utilise video conferencing platforms including Zoom, Facebook Messenger and Microsoft Teams to connect with our participants and to deliver ‘Reconnect’, and we made sure for each group we use the platform that they have been using previously and are comfortable with.

10-1990-103 Untitled (from Dundee: City in Transition, Building the Tay Road Bridge) by Joseph McKenzie

Supported by the Creative Learning Team, Chris Kelly from THAT and freelance artist David Scott, the group meet weekly through Zoom for their ‘Reconnect’ sessions. They have started to create their art works and have been able to capture their images using cameras or mobile phones, either from home or when out for daily exercise, in keeping with current COVID-19 restrictions.

Each session focuses on outlining a photographic exercise, inspired by Joseph McKenzie’s work, with a critique of the previous week’s images and support to develop new skills and individual artistic and creative vision. The group have also had a ‘virtual curatorial session’ with our Fine and Applied Arts Manager Anna Robertson, which offered a fantastic opportunity to ask questions directly to Anna and to gain an insight into the curatorial process and further information about Joseph McKenzie and his life and work.

The ST/ART group still have a few more ‘Reconnect’ sessions before completing their photography work and we’re really looking forward to seeing more of their amazing photographs. One project outcome for the ST/ART group is the creation of an online gallery to exhibit their photography work and we are very excited to facilitate this for them and to celebrate and share their achievements!

Keep up-to-date with ‘Reconnect’ through our online and social media channels as the project progresses!

The project has been made possible thanks to Art Fund support and additional funding from Tayside Healthcare Arts Trust.