Penguins and Polar bears!

Although we’ve been a little quiet on the blog front, we have been working away behind the scenes here at Creative Learning HQ getting ready for a brand new exhibition we know you’re going to love!!!

This weekend the museums new temporary winter exhibition ‘Among The Polar Ice’ brings together two major series of artworks by leading Scottish artists Frances Walker and James Morrison. The exhibition features the extreme landscapes of the Polar Regions at a time when melting ice and rising sea levels are making world headlines. The spectacular paintings offer a visual record of these fragile areas and raise awareness of global warming.

You will notice our ‘Family Space’ may appear a little icier than usual … the penguins have escaped from an original Frances Walker print and made it feel a little more like home! Wrap up warm with our ‘Polar Dress Up’ corner and prepare for your own expedition to see how many penguins you can find! We also have an exciting new range of books for you to enjoy, and lots of other creative activities to keep your little polar explorers busy!

 

Our Exhibition ‘Among the polar ice’ in the Here & Now Gallery, opens on Saturday 7th September. Play and learn in the Museum’s Family Space. Drop in each day to try out our fun creative activities, themed costumes, books and games  The Family space is open daily 10am until 5pm and returns this weekend.

 

ARTIST ROOMS: Young People’s Projects

We’ve been busy in Creative Learning over February and March as we finished up our recent project ARTIST ROOMS Young People’s Projects. If you’ve been following the blog, you’ll be familiar with our work to support young people from across Dundee to engage with and creatively respond to the work of influential conceptual artist Lawrence Weiner.

McManus Youth Action Group completed their project and last month, collaborated with Dundee Print Collective to develop their final project outcome. The groups text-based work and designs were screen printed as an artists’ book and the group were able to see this process first hand, as well having a go at printing one of the colour layers of the publication in the professional print making studio at the DCA.

I liked learning more about art and gaining confidence in making my own art.

I learned how to look at artwork differently and describe it in a whole new way.

I liked meeting new people.

Photographed by David P Scott. All rights reserved. http://www.davidpscott.com

Photographed by David P Scott. All rights reserved. http://www.davidpscott.com

Since our last blog post, The Wednesday Writers have had a busy few months completing their work for the project. The group presented their creative writing pieces to family, friends, members of the public and museum staff through a public creative writing recital in the ARTIST ROOMS Lawrence Weiner exhibition. The group also prepared their writing work for inclusion in the artists’ book publication alongside McManus Youth Action Group, enabling the writers to have their written work published for the very first time!

I enjoyed learning new things and expressing myself.

I learnt a lot about the artist and the text [work], I found it very interesting and a good opportunity to work with McManus staff.

I have learned a lot of new things about writing and it has helped me gain confidence.

The team, McManus Youth Action Group and The Wednesday Writers came together  to celebrate the creative work, skills and achievements of both groups at the end of March in a sharing event hosted for the participants and their family and friends. This was a great day to celebrate together, share experiences and to get the first look at the artists’ book publication which was shared for the first time! We were also able to bid a fond farewell to ARTIST ROOMS Lawrence Weiner in style; here’s a little bit of feedback from our project team to finish off this week’s post.

Still from video filmed by David P Scott. All rights reserved. http://www.davidpscott.com

Still from video filmed by David P Scott. All rights reserved. http://www.davidpscott.com

Still from video filmed by David P Scott. All rights reserved. http://www.davidpscott.com

I felt genuinely challenged by the discussions we had around the work and love that it required less knowledge of art history, than general knowledge or a view of life.

My role in the Youth Action Group has been very rewarding [and] working with such talented young people is inspiring!

…it’s also been wonderful seeing everyone’s confidence grow over the duration of the project, being comfortable expressing themselves creatively.

ARTIST ROOMS: Young People’s Projects

We’re back on the blog train here in Creative Learning. This week’s post will focus on giving you an update on our ARTIST ROOMS Young People’s Projects.

As part of our learning programme, McManus Youth Action Group (YAG) have been inspired by the recent exhibition ARTIST ROOMS: Lawrence Weiner and developed their own creative learning project. The group have worked with text generation, language and screen printing to create text-based work, and this is being further developed for an Artists Book publication, created in partnership with Dundee Print Collective.

 

I learned how to look at an artwork differently and describe it in a whole new way.

I learnt new skills like screen printing and speaking more about my art.

We welcomed The Wednesday Writers back to the museum for their ARTIST ROOM creative learning project with the team. The Wednesday Writers are a group of creative writers who have a learning and/or a physical disability and are supported by the NHS Tayside Occupational Health team. The group explored ARTIST ROOMS: Lawrence Weiner through creative writing and created a series of creative writing work that was shared through a creative writing recital with the public and museum staff in February. The Wednesday Writers work will also be presented in the Artist Book publication, created by Dundee Print Collective. Both groups will be celebrating their project work with family and friends later on in March.

I’m really proud of myself.

Refreshing to have different people to work with, it’s good for creativity.

I learnt a lot about the artist and the text [work]. [I] found it very interesting and a good opportunity to work with McManus staff.

 

As well as working with the two goups above, we have developed and delivered three school sessions that have explored ARTIST ROOMS: Lawrence Weiner with secondary pupils from the High School of Dundee and Craigie High School. Both classes had a talk and tour with the team that discussed the artist, his work and ideas, before creating their own text-based art works inspired by the exhibition and the art concepts of Lawrence Weiner. These were then taken back to school, with the final idea to think about where in their school each pupil would install them; creating an ‘art-intervention’ similar to that created by Lawrence Weiner for the museum.

I liked the creative part (collage) the most.

I learned that multiple things can be art.

Christmas at McManus!

We are well and truly getting into the spirit of Christmas here at Creative Learning HQ! We’ve popped on our Santa hats and we have decorated our Family Space to make sure Christmas at McManus on Saturday the 8th of December is jam packed with festive cheer and creative, Christmas activities for you and your family to enjoy!

Christmas at McManus gets underway from 12pm this Saturday and you can look forward to drop-in Christmas crafts from 12 to 4pm across the museum and our resident community choir Loadsaweeminsingin’ will be spreading Christmas joy as they sing a selection of beautiful Christmas Carols in our Gothic Hall from 1 to 1:30pm!

For little ones and their grown ups, we have a special series of interactive Christmas stories including The Dundee Star, Santa’s Lost His Presents and The Christmas Donkey. We have plenty of opportunities for the kids to get involved and join in with our magical storytellers and sessions are at 12:30 to 1pm; 1:30 to 2pm and 2:30 to 3pm in our Victoria Gallery.

Our Family Space will also be filled with art materials and will open all day. Get your sleigh bells and Christmas jumpers at the ready and join us to celebrate Christmas at McManus!