Creative Connections 2003-2004

We have been working with the Education Team at Whitechapel Art Gallery to evaluate Creative Connections, a large-scale artists-in-schools initiative. We were keen to take on the evaluation to further their interests in the motivations and consequences of artists, teachers and galleries working together. In the first year of the programme, we produced a report and proposed a series of recommendations for the gallery (see link to the right), many of which have been taken forward for the second-year of the programme. For Creative Connections year two, B+B are producing a research document and will host a public debate as part of the local affairs programme at the gallery in July 2004.

B+B research question:

In what ways does Creative Connections facilitate the idea of the artist as an agent for social change in terms of a critical pedagogy?

Taking Creative Connections as a starting point, we will consider the impact that artist-in-school programmes can have on participating artists, teachers, pupils, schools and galleries. More specifically, we want to investigate the potential of Creative Connections to engage schools as sites for experimentation, supporting process-led contemporary art practice and discursive, critical teaching methodologies. We will also consider the motivations for artist-in-school programmes, placing Creative Connections in the wider context of schemes such as Creative Partnerships and Citizenship Education, which support the idea of social inclusion and change within schools through art.