Turner Contemporary, Stour Valley Arts and Canterbury City Council Museums and Galleries Service are delighted to launch Maths Through Pattern, a pilot resource that explores how to use pattern in contemporary and historical art, museum specimens and the natural environment to teach maths.

Drawing on Stour Valley Arts commissions, the collections from Canterbury Museums and the exhibition Superabundant at Turner Contemporary the resource, designed by artist Katie Beinart, is intended to complement and strengthen visits to each of the venues.

The project is part of a policy of collaboration and partnership working between the three Kent based cultural organisations to strengthen the cultural offer to local schools.Research has shown that good preparation and follow up work deepens the effectiveness of learning outside the classroom.

The resource has been generously funded through museums and galleries strategic commissioning and is part of the Enquire research programme supported by Engage.

It can be downloaded by following this link and is available as separate themed pdfs.There are activities for use in the classroom and in the school ground: http://www.turnercontemporary.org/learn/?p=150  

We ask those using the resource to feed back to us using an evaluation form

If you wish to book an associated visit please contact info@stourvalleyarts.org.uk

PULSE

A new creative initiative from Future Creative C.I.C . (formerly Creative Partnerships Kent).

Pulse is a pilot programme funded initially by Future Creative to support Kent based cultural organisations to work with young people. It forms part of the Cultural Olympiad.

Stour Valley Arts is working with Ashford Youth Forum to create an event at King's Wood, Challock. Young people are invited to take part and to work with artists to learn about the arts in Kent and beyond. For more information about getting involved please contact 01233 740040 email: lolthomas@hotmail.com or text: 07730984892

CLUSTER PROJECT
SVA ran a project with two different year groups in two Ashford town primary schools to explore and learn about the natural environment in King’s Wood and compare and contrast this with their own school settings. Over the course of an academic year the participating schools made two visits to the forest, saw the sculptures and took part in various creative activities linked with seasonal change. They also had a half-day follow up session in school, learning about the artists’ practice and creating more work linked to their experiences at King’s Wood. They recorded their observations in their own sketchbooks, using materials drawn from the forest environment. The students worked with SVA artists Martin Brockman, Nikki Dennington, Laura Thomas, Cas Holmes and Chris Rutter. The work was brought together in an exhibition at Ashford Library as a celebration event at the end of the year. A photographic record was kept throughout the year of the project for display at this event.

There is great potential to develop the resources at King's Wood and SVA exploring the art, ecology, history and geography of the site. By its very nature SVA encourages healthy activity and walking since the site is a large one. In harmony with its aims to work over long periods of times and through the seasons of the year, SVA wishes to encourage longer-term education projects to deepen the learning experience of the participants.

" a heightened awareness of the forest. An insight into how it might be possible to interpret the forest in a visual and aural way expressively rather than literally"        Chris Rutter artist

"The project was extremely successful; pupils produced some excellent pieces of work"..." Pupils who are not necessarily motivated in a classroom setting showed increased signs of motivation in the woods and in the workshops back in the classroom"..."they enjoyed the practical work and the space to work on a large scale. Interaction with artists helped to motivate and inspire pupils"

ART<>ECO

An arts and science project involving artists an ecologist and a group from The North school and Selling, Chilham and St Simon's RC Primary schools began in October 2007 and ran throughout the year culminating in exhibitions in summer 2008.

This involved activities both at King’s Wood and on the school site. Some of the themes this year involved growing cycles and habitats. The secondary school group followed the theme of a cabinet of curiosities. We were also looking at seasonal change and issues about global warming.

This project has been generously funded by the Ashden Trust and Mark Leonard Trust

For more info : www.ashdendirectory.org.uk

Watch this Space 4 is a national project funded by Engage

SVA has worked with Queen Elizabeths grammar school, Faversham and Rosita Higson in the art department and a group of year 9 students on a pilot funded by WTS4 to explore ways of working together. It is hoped that this will be the beginning of a fruitful collaboration. Students came to King's Wood to complement project work on the theme of Conflict (including a visit to Ypres) and we looked at art works to reflect this as well as the history and geography of the site. Latest plans include a whole school assembly to showcase the project and an exhibition to be held at the Community Café in Preston Street, Faversham.

Other teachers interested in discussing how SVA can support the delivery of the 5 hours of culture or other projects should contact Lucy Medhurst : education@stourvalleyarts.org.uk or by calling the office on: 01233 740040

KING'S WOOD SYMPHONY

This is a new work commissioned from composer Matthew King and involving Stour Valley Arts, the Wigmore Hall and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. The wood is used as inspiration, performance space and instrument in this piece which creates a dialogue between the ancient woodland space and the contemporary urban environment of Wigmore Hall. 

The third movement of the piece will involve percussion and will be performed by St John's RC Comprehensive school in Gravesend.

The fourth movement of the piece is being created as part of a project involving students from the electronic music department at Guildhall led by Mike Roberts. They are mentoring school students from Norton Knatchbull school in Ashford and St Marylebone in London. The students have made recordings of sounds in the forest which will be used as part of the second movement.

Supported by Arts Council England, John Wates Charitable Trust, Peter de Haan Charitable Trust and Colyer-Fergusson Trust

Exploring the Context

A series of artists' talks and workshops have been arranged by SVA as a preliminary step towards a site specific ecologically sustainable building for King's Wood.

The workshops will run as follows:

24th February and 3rd March 2007 led by Simon Barker and Martin Brockman and involving Chilham Environmental Protection Society and Friends of King's Wood.

7th and 8th March led by Sara Wicks with Chilham school.

12th and 19th March led by Tina Carter at Valence school.

For more information on the artists' talks please e mail: info@stourvalleyarts.org.uk

The workshops and talks have been generously funded by AONB and Arts Council England

A copy of the project report is available at Stour Valley Arts office

SALON workshops

Following a successful first year of residential workshops at SVA, we are delighted to announce that a second series will be funded by the Arts Council. The workshops will be coordinated by Melissa Mostyn. The series will run in July 2007.

A CD of the 2006 workshops is available through the Salon website.

More information on www.salonart.org.uk

Student Bursary Competition

SVA ran a student bursary competition for undergraduates from UCCA at Canterbury and ASAD in Ashford. This was run in collaboration with Ashford Borough Council. The competition was launched at the SVA conference on 24th February and students collected an information pack, which set out a brief to design a temporary piece to be sited in a range of locations in Ashford town centre.
There have been field trips to King's Wood and to the sites at Ashford.

The final presentations and the selection of the winners was made in June and exhibited at Ashford Library during architecture week from 16 - 23rd June 2006.

The winners were Kamilla Sztyber from ASAD and Christine Lobb from UCCA and their sculptures were launched as part of the Art and Architecture Festival in September 2006 in the Memorial Gardens in Ashford.

CEMEA workshops

A project, which is a collaborative venture between Fabrica, SVA and CEMEA in Lille. A party of children from France came to King’s Wood for workshops in the forest between 6th and 9th June 2006. A group of students from Towers school worked with the French students for one day.

More information on the Fabrica site wwwfabrica.org.uk

For You Too

Funds are being sought to finance another phase of this successful project, which involves artist training and 2 day workshops at King’s Wood with groups from a hospital school, a youth group, a school with a hearing impairment unit and a school with a group of Roma children.

Each group will be matched with artists to work on particular themes.

You can download the For You Too report from our 2004 programme using the links below. Each will open in a new browser window or automatically download to your computer depending on your settings.

- 4U2 Report 2004 (download Word, 24.9MB)
- 4U2 Report 2004 (download text only, 101kb)