In 2019 the Bdc ran our fourth series of artist residencies led by craft makers with local hospital partners, funded by the Foyle Foundation, P.H. Holt Foundation, The Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals NHS Trust and The Walton Centre NHS Foundation Trust. With support from Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust.
Four 10-week residencies took place between 30 January – 31 October 2019: Christine Toh at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital; Michael Brennand-Wood at Broadgreen Hospital; Rachael Howard at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital; and Gill Curry at The Walton Centre.
Each maker spent one day a week at the partner hospital, teaching art and craft techniques to patients, relatives, clinicians, volunteers and staff.
For more information about the individual residencies, please follow the links at the bottom of the page.
The 2019/20 programme of workshops at Life Rooms Recovery College (LRRC) in Walton and Clock View Hospital built upon our first project ‘Make for Life’ in early 2019. The aim of this next stage of the project was to engage with diverse members of the local community, including the elderly, who may feel excluded or alienated, and those who would benefit from the therapeutic qualities that art and craft sessions can give.
A series of three 5- to 8-week workshops took place between 10 September 2019 – 17 March 2020: ceramics with Simon Shaw; printmaking with Karen Edwards; and ceramics with Kirsti Hannah Brown. Each maker ran one session a week at LRRC Walton for 4- to 6-weeks, and one session a week at the inpatient unit at Clock View Hospital for 1- to 2-weeks.
This project was funded by the Elizabeth L Rathbone Charitable Trust and Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust – Life Rooms Recovery College.
For more information about the individual workshop series, please follow the links at the bottom of the page.
In 2018/19 the Bdc set out to undertake a review of best-practice models for integrating craft-makers into secondary education as part of the Cultural Education Research Initiative (CERI) supported by Curious Minds, Liverpool Hope University and RECAP (the Centre for Research into Education, Creativity and the Arts through Practice, based at the University of Chester). The project took us into a number of local secondary schools around Merseyside to meet teachers who had integrated ways of artist-led working and residencies into their curriculum, to help us build a detailed picture of the conditions and resources that are essential for a productive long-term collaboration between the schools and the craft-maker.
A common theme raised during our research was the importance of teachers being involved in the selection of the craft-maker to ensure they were a good fit for both the staff and students, with adequate expertise and pedagogical insight.
During 2019/20, Bdc responded to the insights gained through our research by piloting a series of practical workshops led by craft-makers working across a range of disciplines, organised as professional development opportunities for art department staff at local schools.
In Summer 2020 we shared our insights and research findings in an article published in Issue 28 of AD magazine, a professional magazine for educators working in the fields of art, craft and design.
A PDF version of the published article can be viewed here.
AD magazine is published by The National Society for Education in Art and Design. To find out more, please visit their website at www.nsead.org/publications/ad-magazine.