Week 8: Creative Partnerships

This week we explored how creative partnerships can be used to enhance the experience of Expressive Arts in primary schools. This led me to investigate what creative partnerships are active in my own local authority.

The Gaiety Theatre in Ayr run several workshops in and outside of schools for children and young people. I chose to look at their rural outreach program which is working with Cairn Primary School in Maybole. This program brings Scottish artists into the school to work with the children in a Technical Theatre Project. This includes Alisa Kalyanova a theatre designer and Benny Goodman a freelance lighting designer and creative collaborator. This culminated in the children gaining a nationally recognised Art Award.

The second project I found interesting, was Back to The Gaiety. The aim is to build archives of past performances at the Gaiety for future exhibitions and digital resources. This project allows children to be active meaning makers in a public resource of their local area.

What I found particularly encouraging about these creative partnerships, was the children’s exposure to living and active artists. I feel that this makes jobs in creative fields more accessible to children. This can help combat the idea that arts are for fun rather than a serious or meaningful pursuit. Below is an image which was circulated on social media. It is an edited version of a poster which the UK Government had put out as a part of a campaign to encourage retraining in cyber technologies. The edited version shows the many ways in which creative work is an essential part of our economy.