Education

Anna Lucas film

Anna Lucas' film, entitled Things that Had Stories Rubbed Out, was the inspiration for the Whitstable Biennale 2010 education programme. The work was sited at Clifton Road in Whitstable during the festival, in a garden shed, accessible through one of Whitstable's many narrow alleyways. Critic for the Independent, Waldemar Januszczak said "looking through the shed window, you see a moving torchlight picking out some unlikely sights: buildings, faces, cities. It's as if someone with a torch had entered a dark cave and found it filled with the ruins of a lost modern civilisation".

Information

For the 2010 edition of the Whitstable Biennale, the Education Programme commissioned artist Jo Addison to create a new artist's multiple for the Biennale. The poster was sent to over 200 schools by way of an invitation to access and use the Biennale - from simply attending the private view to utilising the changed landscape of the town as an exciting backdrop against which to extend classroom practice.

Jo worked closely with filmmaker Anna Lucas as she developed a new work based on a process of research around time, light and image juxtaposition. Through a series of conversations and visits to Whitstable the artists exchanged ideas and identified common ground. The emerging theme was a concern with the notion of a screen or blank space onto which the viewer is invited to project their imaginings.

Jo Addison

Artists Print

Jo's print consists of 16 images, paired from front to back, that depict a series of mundane, everyday things. These quiet objects are unassuming, somehow absent but simultaneously odd and compelling. They can be read as a sequence of blank spaces, reminiscent of screens, on which something might be about to happen.

Use the poster simply as an interesting visual addition to the classroom or as a creative resource. It is intentionally open to allow teachers and pupils to interpret and use it in a variety of ways.

Here are some starting points for you to consider and develop:

Cut out each object from one side to create actual spaces - use as viewfinders to explore the school environment.

Explore negative space - ask pupils to make a drawing by only drawing the negative spaces.

Use collage to re-imagine and fill in the spaces.

Find your own blank, screen like spaces around the school and town.

Create your own blank objects by painting things white. Try painting the detail of a completely different object onto the blank one.

Try wrapping objects up in brown paper to remove the detail. You could attempt to memorise the object in order to draw the detail back in.

Photocopy the poster onto OHP film and project. Allow pupils to use themselves to perform scenarios in the blank spaces.