Connections Bursary: A Day in London’s Most Inspiring Galleries
Sophie Doyle, Sarah Taylor and Kelly Broughton
At the start of the summer break, three passionate art educators set off on a whirlwind day trip to London thanks to the generous support of the Art Teachers Connect Connections Bursary. With sketchbooks, cameras, and open minds, we visited a carefully curated selection of galleries that nourished both our creative souls and our teaching vision.
OOF Gallery
Nestled within Tottenham Hotspur’s spectacular reimagined football stadium, OOF Gallery welcomed us with art that blends athletic culture and identity. This bold, playful exhibition sparked lively discussion around gender in sport and representation, ideas we immediately saw as translatable into projects for students in our mainstream, FE, and hospital school settings.
National Portrait Gallery – Jenny Saville Exhibition
At the National Portrait Gallery, the Jenny Saville exhibition was a vivid highlight. Her large-scale, visceral portraits explore body image, identity, and the human form in ways that feel both personal and politically charged. We left feeling deeply inspired to bring these conversations into our classrooms, encouraging students to approach the body as a powerful subject in art.
MOCO Museum
At MOCO, we immersed ourselves in contemporary voices and digital installations that tackle profound themes, racism, climate justice, and political activism. We found rich material for teaching projects and classroom dialogue grounded in real-world artistic responses to pressing social issues.
Saatchi Gallery Flowers: Flora in Contemporary Art & Culture
Our visit to Saatchi coincided with the spectacular Flowers exhibition. It spanned nine immersive galleries and showcased over 500 works, from lush floral still lifes and fashion pieces to monumental installations and digital gardens.
One unforgettable highlight was Rebecca Louise Law’s installation of over 100,000 suspended dried flowers, creating a suspended dreamscape that feels both ethereal and grounded in nature. In another room, Miguel Chevalier’s digital garden responded to visitor movement, flowers blossoming and shifting in real time across 70 m² of space
The exhibition’s themes, from historical symbolism to contemporary fashion, science, and emerging artists, resonated deeply. It offered us fresh ideas for art units in mainstream classrooms and specialist hospital settings, and discussion prompts on cultural symbolism and environmental issues.
Leake Street Arches
To close out the day (and because the Tate Modern had closed), we wandered through the Leake Street Arches beneath Waterloo Station, a living canvas of graffiti, street art, and public expression. The vibrant walls tackled topics like equality, race, climate, and identity, offering an authentic lesson in democratic, unsolicited art that thrives outside traditional gallery spaces.
Why This Trip Mattered
This gallery-hopping adventure was not just about seeing art, it was about reconnecting with fellow educators and renewing our creative spirits. We reflected on the impact last July’s ATC residential had on us and how today’s art expedition had had a similar effect. Sharing reflections, teaching methodologies, and new project ideas reminded us why our work matters across every educational setting: whether mainstream schools, hospital schools, or FE.
Experiencing artists who confront issues like body image, racism, gender, and identity firsthand was incredibly inspiring. We gathered visual strategies, conceptual themes, and emotional resonance to bring back into the classroom.
Gratitude & Looking Ahead
A huge thank you to Art Teachers Connect for making this possible. The bursary allowed us to step outside our routines, immerse in art, and return in September renewed, ready to build inspiring, socially engaged curricula.
Here’s to more trips, more gallery conversations, and more teachers igniting creativity and critical thinking in their students.