teaching fellowship award

Just before beginning the 'my school' project I was checking my UCA mailbox when I realised that what I was doing seemed to fit the bill for a teaching fellowship. I'm not very experienced at writing project proposals and the very same day was the deadline for receipt of applications. However I managed to put something very sketchy together and got some feedback from Philippa Ashton, Kathleen Rogers and a friend of mine, Lesley, who works as a charity fundraiser. By the following week, and two days late, I finally had something decent together with recommendations from Steve Littman and Bob Russell. A summary follows:

The project will provide:
· an opportunity for students to undertake teaching work with KS2 children (thereby providing a hands-on introduction to teaching for those who might wish to enter the profession),
· raise the ‘bar’ by providing high level specialist visual subject input into schools, by improving student’s visual literacy, creative skills, understanding and enjoyment of modern and contemporary art while fostering increased awareness of contemporary artists within society,
· enable these children to engage with new technology and reflective visual practice currently unavailable to them within their existing curricula model,
· enable her course (DFSA) to engage with a local WP agenda,
· provide a pedagogic model for other courses, staff and students to engage with other schools on similar projects in different subject areas,
· enable a key member of staff to forge further links between the subject(s) of her on going (and exhibited) research practice and her T&L activities,
· and enable the college to publicise its wider work within the local community.

My own research and practice mostly concerns ‘the artist as a mother’ and my own children often feature in the work in make. I have been interested for some time in actually involving them in the work rather than them being the subject – establishing a more collaborative basis, particularly with my older son who is 11 and at the threshold of his teenage years. I am trying to increase my awareness of activities for young people in the local area and would like to contribute in some way in the future, whilst working this into my research objectives. Since attending a SEEDA conference for Women’s Enterprise at the Farnham Maltings last year, I have been inspired by the idea of launching a Social Enterprise targeting local teenagers and involving them in a range of creative activities. I hope to develop this idea in such a way that the University would have a pivotal role. This project is an opportunity for me to work with a younger age group, confront new challenges and see what opportunities present themselves that will add value to my development in this area. I will continue my research into other local businesses that have Social Enterprise status in order to establish a model for my own initiative, identify good practice and make links beyond the University.
http://www.seeda.co.uk/news_&_events/press_releases/2008/20081119.asp
http://www.seeda.co.uk/search/?quickSearch=1&s=social+enterprise&GoButton=Go

Alongside ‘my school’, I will continue my own creative practice - stills, video and sound work that is ongoing since the late 90s around my son’s games, words, songs and more recently my daughter is also becoming part of this work. In January 2007 I completed ‘living room’, a claustrophobic and chaotic family portrait made over the holiday period that reflects the dominance that the children have in our shared space. This is a 3 screen Hi-Definition Video artwork that was made and screened for New Territories – The National Review of Live Art in Glasgow which took place in February 2007. A series of daily screenings took place at the Tramway called Definitive Stories and ten artists were invited to conceive and execute new work in Hi Definition Video. ‘The project seeks to encourage artists and experimental filmmakers to use the Hi Definition system and asks them to consider innovative forms of deployment within this rapidly emerging format.’ This work was screened in Strange Screen Thessalonica In January 2008. My most recent research presentation, ‘the artist as ‘a mother watching’ - began to contextualise my art practice in relation to the work of other photographers and artists who make work about their children or their experience of motherhood.

I would very much like to widen the scope of my research by writing a journal or conference paper relating to the proposed project and this award would provide the motivation. I have taken a break from writing since starting a family in the mid-90s but previous to this I had a healthy run of published articles.