Connections Bursary: An Act of Care
Hannah Vallis
I’m in my 5th year of teaching now, leading the A Level Photography course and at times, it can feel a bit like groundhog day. I felt I needed to change things up as an act of care for my students, but also myself as a creative practitioner. In the day-to-day life of school there is not the physical time or headspace for this, and I want to take the opportunity this summer to reflect on my teaching practice and look at how I can develop going forward to ensure I continue to innovate and be creative in the classroom.
The ATC bursary supported me to go on a two-day research trip to London to attend a number of exhibitions to help inspire ideas and give me time and space to reflect.
During my research visit I attended Autograph ABP to see Eileen Perrier: A Thousand Small Stories and Dianne Minnicucci: Belonging and Beyond. Minnicucci is both an artist and teacher and is the inaugural resident artist for Autograph’s Visible Practice Residency, a three-year project supporting Artist Teachers from global majority backgrounds in arts education. This was exciting to see how she navigated this dual role in the classroom. I found the documentary of how she explored this with her students insightful, and it has challenged me to bring my own work and creative practice into the classroom more, it also highlighted the importance of making time for developing my own creative practice.
At Autograph ABP, I also saw the amazing portraiture work of Eileen Perrier. I loved how her series Red, Gold and Green turned the home environment into the studio, but the homes of the subjects are not fully covered by the backdrop. These ideas of makeshift studios are something I have been trying to explore with students, and this will be a great example to use going forward, exploring how the images could be read differently if the fabric backdrop filled the frame.
The following day I visited Tate Modern and went to the Leigh Bowery exhibition. It was refreshing to see an energetic and fun exhibition in a white cube space. A particular piece that stood out to me was this jacket made of kirby grips, and how we can use it as an example of encouraging students to see everyday objects in new ways.
This trip also gave me the headspace to reflect on my practice and think about what I wanted to change. Whilst I had a lot of ideas, I knew I needed to manage my ambitions in terms of both workload and work/life balance. So instead of trying everything, I have challenged myself to make five changes or developments to the scheme of work. I want to ensure I make my classroom a space for me to be creative and experiment with ideas, as well as it being an environment that fosters that in students. Ideas so far include:
- Working with an English teacher, pairing students up to create poems and photos that can then be turned into a collaborative piece of work
- Creating a giant human cyanotype on fabric rather than student making their own individual work
- Visiting a darkroom in Leeds City Centre to push and explore what we can manage in our tiny darkroom (without plumbing or an enlarger…) with the numbers of students we work with
- Sharing personal projects on a more regular basis with students, inspired by Dianne Minnicucci and bringing my own vulnerability and creative practice into the classroom more
For me, this bursary and research trip has been a catalyst, and I am excited to see the ways these ideas develop over the next year. It has encouraged me to treat my teaching practice as an artistic practice.