Reflections on the Year 3 Project Reflections on the Year 3 Project 1

Contents

Foreword p2 June 1. An Educationalist’s Perspective Professor Maggie Atkinson 2021 About the Project p4 EDITED BY Naranee Ruthra-Rajan

COPY EDITED BY The Essays Marina Lewis-King 2. A Year With Year 3 p5 The term Tate Year 3 Project Marina Lewis-King in the first instance and 3. Participation Begins With Me: Year 3 thereafter refers Reflections From Tate and School p9 to the whole project Headteachers on Year 3 including planning and production stages. David Parker with Kate Atkins, Maria Balshaw, Jackie Benjamin Steve McQueen Year 3 refers to the artwork and Anna Cutler and exhibition. 4. Out of the Shadows p15 For clarity, we have Colin Grant referred to the school year group of Year 3 as Y3. 5. Across the Imaginative Threshold p19 of the Future of Cultural Equity Ego Ahaiwe Sowinski 6. Year 3: Achieving Scale and Quality p24 in a Cultural Endeavour Pauline Tambling 7. Year 3: Elements of Risk p29 Anna Cutler 8. We Are Here! Observations and Analysis of the Year 3 Class Visits p34 Tate Schools and Teachers Team with Eileen Carnell

9. Young Londoners’ Perspectives on p38 Steve McQueen Year 3 Christine Lai, James Broadley and Aoife O’Doherty 10. Why Did We Do This, and What Did We Learn? Reflections p42 From Lead Partners David Parker with Anna Cutler, James Lingwood and Steve Moffitt Reflections on the Year 3 Project 2

Foreword An Educationalist’s Perspective

I am pleased to introduce and share these nine essays commissioned by A New Direction to reflect on the Tate Year 3 Project and provoke thinking about future projects. As Chair of A New Direction, I want to thank Steve McQueen, who in making this project happen and having the vision to see things differently, offered both a huge challenge, and the opportunity to let us all see London’s children, teachers, schools, families, and communities as never before. Between 2018-2020, that vision helped to highlight the rightful prominence and rights-based place of arts and culture in the curriculum - for all learners and teachers.

Through Year 3, we were country in the world, we English file and dance in challenged to really see have apparently decided PE. That whole curriculum, our children and young it is okay that 4 million whatever the weight it people, who as well as being children will go to bed placed on us, championed the future of this great tonight, as they did in 2019, breadth, balance, capital, are almost 25% of its hungry, cold, and poor. entitlement, equality of citizens now - not citizens access and opportunity. We opened 40 years in waiting. My memory of For every child, including after the late, great Mary seeing the Steve McQueen the challenging and Warnock told us in her Year 3 exhibition for the difficult ones. ground-breaking review of first time was gazing at Special Educational Needs It was 30 years since the the faces of future leaders, and/or Disability (SEND) Children Act 1989, whose parents, scientists, artists, that we are charged, as founding tenet and primary healers, and community teachers, with love for the principle was the best activists; teachers now, children who we work with. interests of the child. Not and in the years to come. Not with labels. With love. the adults. The child. Artists see things the rest She was clear until she It was 30 years since the UN of us can’t. And so Year 3 died that education is not ratified the United Nations enabled us to see, and about numbers, or league Convention on the Rights of hear, what is to come. tables - it is about love. the Child, the world’s most November 2019: already two As we opened it was signed and ratified human years ago, saw the launch of 30 years since the first rights treaty bar none, with Steve McQueen Year 3. That National Curriculum only one nation not signing: year, it had been 50 years came into use. It had a the USA. The Convention since humanity landed two whole curriculum A4 file is not incorporated in UK men on the Moon. Yet still, on art. Another on music. law, but it is a treaty. We are in this, the sixth richest It included drama in the bound by it because we are Reflections on the Year 3 Project 3

a ratifying state party. If We are duty bearers for paper, with a line guide you don’t know it, go to the these rights-holders. under it. I still write that UNICEF website where it is Children do not have to way given half the chance. explained, and look at the earn the rights. If they Out of school, my Irish- We are duty bearers Rights Respecting Schools are here, they have them Yorkshire grandad taught page. This is not about all. From us, to them. for these rights me to think, argue, debate. children being in charge. On the walls of Tate And took me to stand in the holders. Children It is about mutuality, and Britain’s main gallery in middle of the big reading everybody of all ages do not have to earn the Steve McQueen Year 3 room at Barnsley’s central having reciprocal rights. the rights. If they exhibition were some of library, held my hand and • Articles 1-5 are general London’s holders of these said, “If you never leave are here, they have principles, stating the universal rights. Whoever Barnsley, but you come them all. From us, rights are all applicable. they are, wherever they are here, books will take you from, whatever their lives anywhere in the world, and • Article 12 says children’s to them. have given them or will beyond in your dreams, voices must be heard, give in future. Educators and in your heart.” My listened to, and their hold these duties because folks scraped the money views must be acted they are teachers. They together to let me learn the on in line with their have a vocation, making it piano, and to sing and sing. age and stage of the greatest job on earth. development, in ways Teachers hold equal Year 3 affirmed us in that that help them shape possibilities in their hands conviction, all over again. what happens to them. for all our children. As Myself aged 7 to 8? I am a an artist, administrator, • Article 23 is very direct West Riding of Yorkshire curator, teacher or project on the right to education, girl, so my education manager, funder or and to our making authority was led by the parent, you hold these adjustments, for all late, great Sir Alec Clegg. things as gifts to give children with SEND. He believed children, them. And therefore, • Articles 28 and 29 say all children, deserved so do the children. n every child has a right everything from education. 1. UNICEF, ‘Convention on the Rights to an education: broad Into my one-form-entry of the Child’, UNICEF, What we do, What and balanced, about working class school came is the UN Convention on Child Rights? aptitudes, tolerance, choirs and orchestras; https://www.unicef.org.uk/rights- breadth, and balance. termly loans from an art respecting-schools/the-rrsa/ collection to shame the • Article 31 says all what-is-a-rights-respecting- great galleries – original art children have a right to school/, accessed 27 May 2021 by the nation’s greats. Our rest, leisure, and access cursive script was beautiful to - and involvement and italic. I learned to write in - arts and culture.1 with a fountain pen on plain

Professor Maggie Atkinson, Chair of A New Direction

Professor Maggie Atkinson chairs improvement in many local authorities. A New Direction. She is an Independent She was Director of Education and Scrutineer in safeguarding partnerships, Culture, and then of Children’s Services, and a UNICEF UK and Michael Sieff in Gateshead (2003-2010) and President Foundation Trustee. She was the second of the Association of Directors of Children’s Commissioner for England Children’s Services (ADCS) (2008-2009). (2010-2015). She is a Comprehensive She has a Doctorate in Education (EdD) School educated Cambridge graduate from - and is an Honorary Professor at and taught English and Drama before - Keele University, and holds Honorary working in school and service Doctorates from Northumbria, Keele, and Nottingham Trent. Reflections on the Year 3 Project 4

About the Project

76,146 No. of teachers, carers and teaching students in photos assistants in photos

individual class 6,250 photographs

No. of 3,128 schools involved 1,504 Academic year 2018 2019 2019 2020 Sep – Jul: Sep – Oct: 3,128 40 – 60 mins class photography 54 Duty of Care school half day assembly sessions in schools across London and workshops for those schools participating Jan – Feb: in the Outdoor Exhibition 99 Ambassador school day long workshops 4th Nov – 14th Nov: for those schools that helped test out the Outdoor Exhibition on over 600 billboards ideas and photography sessions across London 12th Nov – 16th Mar: Gallery Exhibition in the Duveen Galleries, Tate Britain 802 schools (1764 classes) booked half day visits to the exhibition 630 schools (1363 classes) visited prior to early closure on 17th March due to Covid-19 Reflections on the Year 3 Project 5

Marina Lewis-King A New Direction Marina is Programmes Manager at A New Direction. A former primary school teacher, she worked on the Tate Year 3 Project coordinating the photographer visits, communicating with schools, and helping develop workshop and school resource content.

A Year With Year 3 1 Reflections on the Year 3 Project 6

A Year With Year 3

Subjects of artwork should always have a positive experience of the process, but when those subjects are 7- and 8-year-olds and there are over 76,000 of them featuring in a national gallery, the need for it to be meaningful participation becomes even more important. Through our role in the Tate Year 3 Project, A New Direction worked hard to make this happen.

Marina Lewis-King When the Year 3 These led to some insightful special that felt. School photographers visited 1,504 discussions, often with trips are always memorable, schools to photograph teachers being delighted but I suspect nothing will more than 3,000 classes and surprised at seeing compare to the time they over the course of just one another side to their saw themselves alongside academic year, it might pupils. It enabled the other London landmarks. have been easier to simply children to become active As we pulled up to Tate snap a picture and move on participants in the artwork Britain, a few started to the next one like on the they are at the heart of, chanting “Tate Britain! Tate usual school picture day. and because they were Britain!” in anticipation. Instead, A New Direction having fun, we got big Once in the exhibition developed an engaging grins for the photo too. within the Duveen range of workshops for the Launch Day – 11th Galleries, there were gasps children and continued to November 2019 and guesses at how many support the photographers On Monday 11th November, photos there might be, to deliver the sessions. I was lucky enough to as we walked past the The discussions and witness the excitement walls covered in pictures. games focused on the of one Year 3 (Y3) class “There must be a hundred children engaging with the when I accompanied million here! Wait... there’s themes of their identity, them to see their photo more!” one child exclaimed. both individually and on a billboard and in the Students were invited to within the community, gallery exhibition. disperse, and they hurried and their ambitions and off to try and find not just hopes for the future. On the way to the billboard their own photo but schools site, the class played a of friends and family too. game of ‘I spy’ and talked about hoping to see Big School trips to see Steve Ben. We first spotted the McQueen Year 3 billboard through the It wasn’t just that lucky windows of the coach and class being invited to Tate There must be a the children erupted into Britain on a special trip. hundred million cheering. When they got There were dedicated slots off the coach, they stood available for participating here! Wait... underneath the poster, schools during weekdays there’s more! pointing at themselves in for the duration of the excitement before posing exhibition. Classes were for a photo underneath. able to view their photo They chatted in awe about up close on a screen, how weird it felt to see their and shown their photo class picture at the side of situated in the gallery the road, and about how too (though some eagle- Reflections on the Year 3 Project 7

eyed students managed many teachers used this to somehow spot the session and the resources picture themselves, first!). to plan more creative activities and opportunities I joined another school exploring their identity I am really proud to be in on their trip in February and community. 2020, where we had fun the Tate Britain and on a spotting the differences Kerri Sellens, Assistant billboard. I love being shown between photos and trying Head and Curriculum Lead to find the one featuring at Lansbury Lawrence, to London and I am proud a dog. It was interesting echoed a view we heard to have the chance to be seeing staff and students from many teachers having similar reactions about how important in the Tate. of awe at how similar the the additional activities pictures could be, and were to the photography yet so different once you sessions, saying: “The was seeing the fun that got up close – in class children enjoyed learning children had when playing size, uniform colour, and about photography games involving the whole individual expressions. through interacting with class, and how proud they We made the most of the the photographer and felt about being part of experience using the self- loved the drama activities something together. guided activities provided accompanying the session by Tate and it was small to encourage deeper A New Direction things, such as the blue thinking about why our commissioned Greg Klerkx plaques next to other community is special.” to develop a new set of paintings in the gallery classroom resources with specifically written to We asked pupils about artists and experienced engage Y3 students, that their experience of the Tate creative education made the children feel Year 3 Project. One pupil facilitators, with a range like that the whole gallery said: “I am really proud to of lengths and themes. offered something for them be in the Tate Britain and These weren’t required – not just the exhibition on a billboard. I love being for the photography they were part of. shown to London and I am sessions to happen, but proud to have the chance to it meant that teachers Children’s experiences be in the Tate.” Another felt could choose to have the at the photo sessions it brought his class closer photographer’s visits as Seeing the children engage together saying, “When the part of a whole teaching with artwork hanging photographers came it made unit, or just as a unique in such a major gallery, me feel like my class were stand-alone experience. which they feature in, a big family.” Even months The Year 3 Learning Lenses felt powerful to me. Over on from the photographer are free and available the previous year, I read visits children had lasting to download on A New daily updates from our positive impressions, such Direction’s website. photographers visiting as: “I like how it wasn’t a all the schools, attended boring photo thing, they Working with teachers sessions myself and heard made it into a fun game.” In order for the children time after time how much to participate and enjoy children enjoy art and their We made every effort to the experience, adults views on its importance be as inclusive as possible, had to make sure lots of at school. Yet many also with sessions tailored to things were in place, with felt as though it might not each school’s need. For lead teachers at schools be for them because they example, some schools had often going out of their weren’t ‘good’ at it, or that shorter workshops with way to accommodate the they didn’t get to do it sensory focused games project staff. We made sure enough at school because, that helped create a sense the whole process was “it wasn’t learning like of community between as smooth as possible for English and maths”. This children who might the schools and teachers view of art was one that not usually collaborate involved and worked hard teachers were often keen in lessons. One of the not to be disruptive to to take on and respond to. highlights for me over busy timetables. There are It was inspiring to see how the workshops I attended also over 6,000 teachers Reflections on the Year 3 Project 8

and educators featured in feature in the picture the photos so we wanted (including those who chose them to enjoy it too! not to despite having consent in place) they were Communication was key still involved in the games My hope is that in this both before and and activities. To make sure after the session, and this artwork, and they felt part of the process, logistics and timings they had the chance to others to come, had to be considered in act as the photographer’s scheduling - particularly continue to inspire assistants during the photo when navigating the itself – often resulting in the young to politics of who could use envious questions from the coveted school hall and engage with art, their classmates about how when! For this to happen, it felt being a photographer. and have fun while advanced planning was vital. Workshops were Children’s superpowers they’re at it. developed in schools by For those schools who were experienced facilitators featured on billboards, we worked with the NSPCC Shermaine Slocombe and To the future... and London Connected Hannah Joyce, who trained From a love of science and Learning Centre on a Duty the photographers to deliver being able to do backflips, of Care programme, which a variety of activities in the to teaching people to included staff briefings to photography sessions. This never give up and making ensure the focus could be planning, with the help of other people happy; from maintained on the children’s Ambassador Schools in the wanting to be artists, welfare and wellbeing. first half term of the project, computer programmers, Facilitators then visited enabled us to communicate gold medal winners, or even those schools to deliver to schools what to expect astronauts moonlighting another workshop for the both in terms of timings as photographers – we children centered around and content. Sessions were have learnt that the future digital citizenship, giving continually developed and generation of London are them space to talk about reflected on, with A New talented and they have their feelings about being Direction running weekly big hopes for the future. featured on the posters. professional development My hope is that this This enabled them to meetings to support the artwork, and others to consider what the reactions photographer team. come, continue to inspire of the public could be and the young to engage The other vital element when they might need to with art, and have fun for coordinating a large talk to a trusted adult. number of school visits while they’re at it. n in such a short window of They were also encouraged time was using technology to consider how to be – with a specially designed responsible photographers website and dedicated email themselves and understand address for us to streamline when it might not be booking and respond to appropriate to share a queries from teachers picture, which is a topic as quickly as possible. of growing importance in the current digital world. Photographers’ assistants The overall aim though was Safeguarding was to keep the focus positive paramount throughout all and help them to celebrate aspects of the project, with being in such a unique every child featured in the project - and celebrate their exhibition submitting a unique identities too. Most parent/carer consent form of the sessions ended in Adapted and updated to their school, along with delightful illustrations of from a blog previously an extra one for schools themselves as superheroes published on A New involved in the outdoor with their own special Direction’s website exhibition. If for whatever super-power, showing a in November 2019. reason a child could not special talent they had. Reflections on the Year 3 Project 9

David Parker David is a freelance researcher and evaluator with an interest in arts and creativity programmes for young people. Recent evaluations have focused on work for the British Council, Arts Council England and Sorrell Foundation. Formerly he was Director of Research for Creative and Cultural Skills, Creative Partnerships and the British Film Institute.

Participation Begins With Me: Reflections From Tate and School Headteachers on Year 3

In Conversation with...

Kate Atkins Headteacher at Rosendale Primary School, Lambeth

Dr Maria Balshaw CBE Director of Tate

Jackie Benjamin, Head teacher at Tyssen Community School, Hackney

Anna Cutler Director of Learning and latterly Director of Learning & Research at Tate (2010 - 22021) Reflections on the Year 3 Project 10

Kate Atkins Jackie Benjamin, Headteacher at Rosendale Head teacher at Tyssen Primary School, Lambeth Community School, Hackney Kate has been teaching in Lambeth for Jackie has been teaching for over 20 over 20 years. She began her teaching years in schools in Tottenham and career in Early Years, which is still an Hackney, becoming a head teacher 6 ongoing passion. In addition to being years ago. After leaving school with no a Headteacher she is CEO of the Great qualifications, Jackie started working North Wood Education Trust, a Multi as a hairdresser and later a chef. She Academy Trust with a local secondary has always had a passion for working school and 3 children’s centres. Kate with children and at 30-years-old, she led ReflectED, one of the first school- graduated as a fully qualified teacher. led research projects in the country as She strongly believes that there is a well as leading Connecting Knowledge, real need for children to see teachers a London based research project who represent the community they which resulted in Rosendale being live in and see that, no matter where an Excellence Hub for lesson study. you start, there are no limits. Rosendale is an EEF Specialist Partner for Research, supporting schools in London and beyond to use evidence- Anna Cutler based practice in the classroom to Director of Learning and latterly improve outcomes for all children. Director of Learning & Research at Tate (2010 - 2021) With 30 years’ experience working in Dr Maria Balshaw CBE education and cultural settings at a Director of Tate local, national, and international level, Maria has held the role of Director Anna’s central purpose throughout of Tate since June 2017. As Director, her career has been to explore and Maria is also the Accounting Officer improve educational interventions appointed by the Department for in a range of cultural and cross- Digital, Culture, Media and Sport disciplinary arts environments. (DCMS). Previously, Maria was In September 2016 she initiated Director of the Whitworth, University Tate Exchange, a civic space of Manchester; Director of Manchester aimed at building dialogue around City Galleries; and Director of Culture art, society, and the urgent and for Manchester City Council. Maria complex issues facing us today. is Chair of the National Museum Directors’ Council and is a Trustee of the Clore Leadership Programme and Manchester International Festival’s Boards. In 2015, she was awarded a CBE for services2 to the arts. Reflections on the Year 3 Project 11

Participation Begins With Me: Reflections From Tate and School Headteachers on Year 3

Why did schools engage with the Tate Year 3 Project in such numbers? What were their motivations for participating? And what did Tate learn as part of that process?

David Parker with Fundamentally Year 3 must be attributed venue explore ways of revaluing exhibition Kate Atkins, Maria to the artist and filmmaker Steve McQueen space and democratising the gallery. Balshaw, Jackie Benjamin whose vision for the project and the artwork “ When I looked at the photographs as a and Anna Cutler it became contains a beguiling surface collection, I saw several different ‘Londons’, simplicity, allowing inner complexities to filled with a huge mix of limitations and slowly emerge over time. Yet the warmth opportunities. And I was aware that not of feeling and personal engagement felt everyone portrayed would consider Tate by so many who experienced the Steve as their space. Year 3 was a chance to McQueen Year 3 exhibition at Tate – challenge that. By placing the images along with the eye-catching billboards of those young people up on the walls, spread across London in 2019 – is also hopefully, it began a process of them due in no small part to the schools and feeling that the Tate might be for them children that participated. They were and their families in the future.” the stars of this particular show. Responding to this idea, Jackie But what motivated them to join in? On Benjamin, concurred. the face of it this was a simple idea with somewhat controlled content, a mass “ We probably had several motivations participation project with rigid logistics as a school but overall, it was very much and timescales which were for the most about the children being represented and part entirely inflexible: everything needed valued. And about them being involved in to happen with a particular year group the process, making the artwork happen. within London boroughs within a single It wasn’t just a visit in that sense. The academic year. Yet, at the same time, it children were partners, and they were really had a choral quality, ceding elements of invested in the idea; they felt involved.” individual control in order to enjoy the It was interesting to hear these interrelated overall impact of many young people expectations articulated from quite joining together in a shared endeavour. Maria Balshaw and different vantage points. The ideas set This was in essence a work of aggregation; Anna Cutler from out by Maria and Jackie speak directly to an example of how the whole really can Tate spoke with what we know to be important principles be greater than the sum of the parts. two headteachers about participatory practice. Participatory from participating To explore some of the dynamics projects aren’t just about empowering schools, Kate Atkins underpinning the process, A New Direction visitors. Every project has to address and Jackie Benjamin, organised two online discussions between three constituencies – the institution, to explore possible key participants from Tate and from participants and the audience and Year 3 reasons behind schools, the key themes of which are set did this very well. A theme that was also Year 3’s success. out below. Maria Balshaw, Director of picked up in the conversation between Anna Tate, explained that Year 3 had helped the Cutler and Kate Atkins. As Anna explained: Reflections on the Year 3 Project 12

“ I think a lot of value came through the the case of the core photography element, This was in fact that for Year 3 the whole concept while there were spin off activities to help cut through directly to the cohort the children understand how that day’s essence a work themselves. They are the piece. They photo would form part of an artwork at of aggregation; are the relevance. The entire concept Tate and follow up work teachers could was about the participants.” engage with, the creation of each class an example of image was a traditional interaction Kate Atkins also saw a large part of the between professional photographers and how the whole value in Year 3 generated by this sense children and teachers who were subjects. really can be of young people inhabiting the project. So far, so orthodox. Yet, as Anna pointed greater than the “ It was absolutely clear this was a ‘school’s out, ‘they are the piece’. The children project’ as opposed to a project to which occupied the halls and walls of Tate Britain sum of the parts. schools were invited… the project simply and therefore participation not only took didn’t exist without the participants.” the form of hands-on activities, it was The concept of participation was a deep also an aspect of each child’s identity, the feature within this work. It was also affirmation of their place within their multi-layered. Participation began with city and the possibilities their collective the individual, seeing themselves within generational representation suggested. the context of their classmates and the That schools embraced this concept so timeless nature of the school photo which enthusiastically, potentially broadens what is so relatable for us all. But each class engagement with art museums can mean, photo was set in the wider context of transforming mass participation with year group cohorts, which in turn were young people as a core element of high- scaled to include many other Year 3 profile conceptual works. This extended (Y3) children from the same borough. to the role of Steve McQueen working as Finally, as this process multiplied, a whole a partner with schools via Tate, Artangel, generation of 7- and 8-year-olds were A New Direction and ArtsMediaPeople. situated within the sweep of an entire city. Anna remarked on this aspect: Effectively, this amounted to a window “ Steve’s presence was a big part of the onto London in 2019, as if the youth of an concept and probably drew people toward entire city had a ‘photo booth’ snapshot the idea, but he also did personal things, simultaneously. Teachers embraced this face to face moments with teachers concept with enthusiasm. Kate reflected: and talks to camera which directly “ You can’t overlook the nature of the ‘event’. valued the work of educators.” It was a spectacle that happened at scale. This invokes an instructive lesson about Also, it was communicated as such so our working at scale. Large scale projects still expectations were clear up front and set involve treating people as individuals. early on. That was important and helped Providing partnership-spirited ways to us connect with the ‘big idea’. But the enter and access the arts experience, nature of the project and its processes Year 3 was in its entirety rested on the also connected with us – we’re interested building blocks of relationship building in where we are and who we are. Schools and showing awareness of and respect are always interested in that, because toward key constituencies. Tate and education starts with the children’s realities. A New Direction placed a great deal of And Steve McQueen just got that – the emphasis on this, ensuring that timings, idea of the ‘school photograph’; they are spaces and instructions were designed part of all our histories. It’s timeless.” with the culture of schools in mind. There is something profound about the A New Direction’s outreach work was the way Year 3 articulated this notion of entry experience for most schools that participation. Schools often think of such participated and as such framed the first projects as being heavily hands-on, yet in contact in ways that made the settings feel Reflections on the Year 3 Project 13

valued. Communications to schools the way logistics were taken care of. were clear and understood the beat We always knew what was needed to which most schools march. Kate and what the expectations were. remarked on the importance of this: Schools need that balance.” “ There’s something hugely important Both Kate and Jackie reflected on the about the pragmatics of projects like important alternative learning spaces this; the timings, in fact the entire and contexts cultural venues provide process, need to be structured in schools, but also pointed to some of ways that fit with the three terms the challenges too. They spoke of a and seasonal rhythms of schools. curriculum which is nominally broad Year 3 did this really well – so much and open to interpretation, but also thought was put into that aspect driven by pressures to secure results and that must have contributed to in summative exams which favour the high levels of engagement.” knowledge transfer and memorisation. From the perspective of teachers, Relating to constituencies in this the arts – particularly when they way helps cement connections which are at their best - can generate work have the potential to build cultural which feels transgressive and pushed capital over time, something Maria to the margins by other modes returned to in her conversation. of learning. While Year 3 creates “ Ultimately Year 3 reminds us it’s our some counterbalance to that, it was job to let families know we are for not what might be considered a them. Tate is free to enter, they will standard curriculum experience and be warmly welcomed, and they will so questions remain about longer find content that relates to them and term legacy and ongoing impact. their lives. We have to keep holding How can schools be helped to build on ourselves account to those ideas and the undoubted energy and enthusiasm Year 3 helped hugely with that.” this large-scale art project gave This challenge and goal is certainly rise to? Year 3 offers some clues. applicable to Tate but also has • Start from where schools already relevance for other cultural venues are – Year 3 showed that huge too. Designing arts experiences engagement was possible if the with education components that central artistic concept related get better the more people interact to schools’ own start points. with them is not simply a matter of providing experiences well suited • What is needed must be clear – to crowds. Successful ‘me-to-we’ whether it is a large collaborative experiences are ones which enable production such as Year 3, an cultural institutions to toggle between artist in residence programme or personal and social engagement arts learning that is CPD driven by choosing concepts which lend – schools really need to see the themselves to individual and shape of the activity and grasp it collective meaning. Year 3 managed early on if they are to sustain their this by conceiving a project which engagement. Clear communication worked effectively with intermediary and conceptual clarity are key. organisations, coordinating schools’ • Degrees of commitment which actions and preferences to create are scalable – not all schools can a more powerful overall result do everything, or be engaged with in the final exhibition. Jackie felt every element of a programme, Year 3 took time to understand but if the core offer is strong and school needs in this regard. simple, they can and will engage “ Year 3 made engaging easier for in large numbers. Some schools us. Every step was clear and well will want to go further and organised. We need that balance engage more deeply, so additional of expression and artistic freedom activities or tiered levels of which came from the final event and connection can be advantageous. the huge attention it got – something we felt part of. But it also came from Reflections on the Year 3 Project 14

Finally, it is important to reflect Other impacts the headteachers The legacy for Year 3 could be far on the impact Year 3 had and suggested included: reaching. It invites us to think about may continue to have. participation in a deep way. What • Higher levels of parental interest counts as participatory art? How The impact on Tate is tangible and the in, and value for, the arts does taking part change the way we commitment from Maria and Anna to • Improved self-esteem and see ourselves and relate to others? listen to feedback and take points of individuality among young people How can art and the art museum learning back to relevant Tate teams is become an open invitation to everyone commendable. Year 3 would be difficult • Greater awareness of place to locate themselves within their to replicate, but other large-scale work and connectedness to others cultural histories and futures? When that operates with similar principles among young people the art is the children, and their is now more realistic from Tate’s participation becomes the work, perspective – the project definitely set • Greater awareness of schools as we are all – families, community, a precedent for working in this way. organisations from the vantage point of cultural venues schools - better placed to reflect on The impact of large projects such their potential and the ways we might as this is difficult to pin down. They • Reinforcement of the importance improve to help them fulfil it. n are transitory in their delivery, but of art for school and school for last long in the memory and have art – that high quality artwork sustained experiential impacts. can emerge from large scale Elements that came through from participatory endeavours Kate and Jackie’s testimony spoke to involving children the scale of impact a project of this Over 1,500 London schools size can have. Jackie reflected on the participated in Year 3. And almost impact of seeing all the photographs 80,000 young people featured in the together in the Duveen Galleries. final artwork in the Duveen galleries “ A lot of the children were struck by the of Tate Britain. This is a scale and lack of diversity or different forms of spectacle not usually associated diversity in some schools; they noticed with school arts projects, but there things that were dissimilar to their is good reason to believe that the own experience, from the ethnicities of emotional uplift such work can offer children to the different backgrounds is replicable. The Covid-19 lockdown in the photos, and that made them that finally encroached on visitor reflect on identity and place.” numbers to Tate Britain in March Large scale projects still 2020 also reminded us of how much Kate reflected on why she made the we need the energy projects of this involve treating people decision to engage, and again, it size and ambition can foster. as individuals. Providing was a determination based on the scale of impact and its potential Year 3 wasn’t just a spectacle. It partnership-spirited ways to work on many levels while was not only a ‘wow’ moment for to enter and access the retaining focus and sharpness. the children who took part. It was a talking point and a means of arts experience, Year 3 “ I liked that it was about a whole reflecting on London as it is today year group. That seemed very and how it might be tomorrow. was in its entirety rested important, because it was contained Steve McQueen’s own take on the on the building blocks of and limited in some respects, but exhibition sums this up well: also very inclusive. Everyone in that relationship building and year group was part of it, and every 'It’s a telescope and microscope showing awareness of school, potentially, could join in. situation. You’re looking through The feedback from the kids when a telescope and seeing all these and respect toward key they came back was palpable. It people, but it’s also reflecting constituencies. was ‘There’s me!’ But also, there’s back on you, making you think: thousands of other mes.” ‘Who am I in all of this?’¹'

1. G.Younge, ‘‘Childhood is a whirlwind’: Steve McQueen on his mesmerising school photo project,’ The Guardian, 4 Nov 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2019/nov/04/childhood-is-a- whirlwind-steve-mcqueen-on-his-mesmerising-school-photo-project, accessed 22 April 2021. Reflections on the Year 3 Project 15

Colin Grant Colin is an author of five books. They include: Homecoming: Voices of the Windrush Generation. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and Director of WritersMosaic, an innovative online platform for new writing. Grant also writes for a number of newspapers including the Guardian, Observer, The Times Literary Supplement, and New York Review of Books.

Out of the Shadows3 Reflections on the Year 3 Project 16

Out of the Shadows

The representation of people of colour in British culture has alternated between near invisibility and hyper visibility; even though historians such as Peter Fryer tell us that, there were Africans in Britain before the English came here. For long stretches of our shared history, black people may have figured only as an afterthought or footnote in museums or galleries, but they’ve more often been demonised as feckless, dangerous wastrels on the front pages of British tabloids.

Colin Grant The yearning to be or have excused and a handsome, suited-man integrated, included excluded themselves. wearing a fedora, taken by as part of the majority F. Holland Day in 1897. Visiting art galleries in consciousness, going the 1970s, my siblings Underneath the portrait about your business and I (the children of was the simple caption: without incident, is offset black Jamaicans of the ‘Negro in Hat’. I was by the anxiety of being Windrush generation) taken aback, immediately subjected to surveillance, used to play a game we flushed with heat and banished to the margins called ‘black people alert’ embarrassment; I could of society, as an unwanted when spotting fellow black see my daughters looked presence. This tension and brown punters who’d bemused as well. We has played out in all facets breached these bastions of stepped back and across to of our society, perhaps Britishness. We may have the next photo, also taken dramatically so in those felt entitled to be in the by the same photographer. public spaces previously museums but that didn’t Here now was a theatrical- perceived as white places preclude discomfort. But looking white man from of privilege; arguably class that was the 1970s, things the same period in what is as much a factor as race. have changed, surely? appeared to be a fancy- That combination can be dress turban. Its caption seen in many working- Make Life Beautiful! - The said: ‘Man in Hat’. Our class people of colour Dandy in Photography, an eyes flicked between the who have felt excluded exhibition in Brighton in two portraits - ‘Negro in from art institutions 2004 was shaping up as Hat’; ‘Man in Hat’; ‘Negro it purported to be: camp, in Hat’; ‘Man in Hat’. aesthetically pleasing and dandyish. By the So, was a Negro not a man? halfway point, walking My daughters and I were round the show with equally dismayed and Historians such as my two daughters (then dispirited. The next day I aged twelve and eight) wrote an angry email to Peter Fryer tell us we’d been exposed to the the curator; I included my that, there were usual suspects - Cecil phone number. He rang me Beaton, Valentino, Noel straight away and defended Africans in Britain Coward, Oscar Wilde. the inclusion of the caption before the English Finally, we came across saying it was historically the welcome sight of a specific, and that, in any came here. black subject (for the first event, it had been given by time), the photo in sepia of the photographer. Fine, but Reflections on the Year 3 Project 17

what, I asked the curator, they were appendages - the of youth, Dido is painted wealthy white aristocrats would he have done if asexualised handmaiden almost as an African (emblematic of the Holland Day had captioned in Manet’s Olympia or the princess in satin, privileged, privileges and exploitation the photo ‘N****r in Hat’? unnamed black servant wealthy and care-free. Her of colonialism and empire) There was silence down (most likely Francis Barber), and Sancho’s portraits with black servants the line. Eventually the in Doyle’s A Literary Party serve as a rebuttal of the portrayed almost as pets. curator and I reached a at Sir Joshua Reynolds. In stereotypical depiction of In the 1980s, I recall peers compromise; he would not that painting Barber, the black people, at the time, who boycotted the Tate and amend the wording but ‘faithful negro servant’ of as grotesque, uncivilised, National Gallery, arguing would insert below it the the great lexicographer licentious drunkards. that to venture into such phrase ‘original caption’. Samuel Johnson, carries a contaminated places was to surrender moral surety Other works such as salver laden with decanters and to indulge in an act of Ebony and Ivory, a ‘majestic of wine, attending to his complicity; a great wrong, countenance and muscled master and eight other captured in paint without torso of an Ethiopian luminaries. censure, should not be Chief,’ according to the There must be The revellers do not include normalized. Conscious Metropolitan Museum of Ignatius Sancho, but, a reckoning but of such criticism, the Art, demonstrated Holland had he survived beyond Tate has at least begun Day’s ‘genuine delectation also reconciliation. his death in 1780, you the conversation on for his subject.’ Day was could imagine Sancho, We’re not alone. inclusivity with a number an American gentleman the fabled ‘African man of outreach projects. photographer (though much of Letters’ invited to such Numerous more than a dilettante) from a gathering. It’s possible. countries have There must be a reckoning the late 19th and early 20th Sancho, who at times but also reconciliation. century whose ‘fascination’ described himself as a ‘black engaged with a We’re not alone. Numerous (veiled infatuation) with Falstaff’, was a London difficult past to countries have engaged black models calls to mind celebrity deemed important with a difficult past to Robert Mapplethorpe’s The enough in 1768 to sit for reimagine a reimagine a better future. Black Book. Mapplethorpe’s Thomas Gainsborough, better future. What can we learn from the lascivious delectation in his the most famous Germans? Two decades ago naked African American portraitist of his time. at the Venice Biennale, the models was evident in But there’s a catch. To see artist Hans Haake with his his photography of the Gainsborough renders Sancho’s portrait you must work Germania critiqued body parts he considered Sancho as a portly figure first venture to the National the building and purpose ‘the most perfect’. His of sartorial elegance in Portrait Gallery and make of his country’s pavilion aesthetic was anatomical; fine clothes, a hand in your peace with the past (inaugurated by the Nazi the projection of a hyper- his waistcoat; an erudite and the knowledge that, as government in 1938) by sexualised fantasy of the gentleman (far removed with the Tate (which takes taking a sledgehammer and black male, reduced to from his inauspicious its name from the sugar bulldozer to the slabs of its sex, to an object. Take for beginnings as the baron Henry Tate of Tate marble floor and reducing instance Mapplethorpe’s orphaned child of enslaved & Lyle), such institutions it to rubble. Its destruction Man in a Polyester Suit. African parents and later came into being in part was exhilarating and Aside from the model’s as a grocer; his actual from the wealth Britain liberating. That sense of hands, the camera’s focus profession). Apart from accrued through the freeing is important. No one is on the black man’s his dark skin there’s no plunder of black bodies would advocate dismantling penis, as if it somehow difference between Sancho during the transatlantic the Tate, but the institution signified his essence. and a white gentleman; his slave trade. Henry Tate, the needs to be liberated and capacity for high culture gallery argues, was not a repurposed. Steve McQueen Arguably, the fact that is further demonstrated slave-owner or slave-trader, Year 3 is yet another step these black models were by his sensuous face. but concedes that it’s ‘not towards that eventuality. the subject of a white possible to separate the artist’s attention was an Trawling through British It was a delight to see Tate galleries from the upgrade, at least as far as art history Gainsborough’s so many brown faces history of colonial slavery Western art was concerned. elegant depiction seems (76,000 youngsters, aged from which in part they Mapplethorpe’s male nudes complimented by the high 7 and 8, from two thirds derive their existence.’1 and Holland Day’s Negro society portrait of Dido of the capital’s primary in Hat were an evolution Elizabeth Belle, the great Given their past, how schools) peering out from the role that models niece of Lord Mansfield. can such places make from the walls of the might have played in earlier Together with her white life beautiful? Many Tate’s Duveen Galleries decades and centuries. Then cousin and in the flush works depict scenes of at Steve McQueen’s show. Reflections on the Year 3 Project 18

Observing not just punters same recognised white of colour but the subjects spaces. We need no longer on the wall, it was as if my nod now; and no longer will younger self was staring there be a need for such back at me from the 3,000 shows as Steve McQueen group portraits of school Year 3 and Get Up Stand kids in their uniforms, Up, Now to be advertised arranged in columns and and heralded with the rows from the floor to the preface ‘the first black…’ thirty-foot-high ceiling. Reflecting on McQueen’s We look at school and class show for The Times Literary photos in awe and wonder Supplement I’d have found but with ambivalence, too. If it hard to criticise it; I these portraits of childhood suspect that, had I not are celebrations of youth and believed it worthy of merit, a snapshot of the present, I’d have declined to review they’re also heralds of what it. You don’t want to kill the is to come. Poring over the dream of inclusion before fading images years later, it’s had time to blossom. we reconstruct narratives For, make no mistake, we of the past, increasingly are in the midst of culture aware that the photos were wars, and there comes always predictors of the future. Similarly, in decades a time when you cannot to come, historians will look remain on the fence, or back to Steve McQueen Year 3 inadvertently align yourself as an indicator of a changing with revisionist forces. demographic where punters Organisers of the inside the gallery and the Uncomfortable Art Tour, portraits on the walls began focusing on cultural …in decades to come, to more closely resemble the institutions such as the historians will people outside who might National Gallery and Tate ordinarily have walked on by. Britain ‘seek to resist look back to Steve Exhibitions like Steve triumphalist nostalgia McQueen Year 3 as McQueen Year 3 and Get Up with art history.’ Their an indicator of a Stand Up, Now (at Somerset approach - evident House in 2019) are the axis in portraits on their changing demographic on which British art history website, for example, of where punters inside is turning; away from the Lord Nelson with ‘White received notion of a canon, Supremacist’ scrawled the gallery and the towards the representation over it in red paint - seems portraits on the walls of the lives and experiences polemical and provocative, of people of colour. They but it is necessarily so. began to more closely echo the chant, “We are Artists of colour (such as resemble the people here!” that children who McQueen, even though attended the exhibition he might squirm at the outside were encouraged to voice. description) have an In the 1970s the same cry obligation to interrogate was heard from black the uncomfortable truths households throughout illuminated on such tours; the UK whenever a person to connect with other of colour appeared on people of colour, in the act television screens; and my of rebellion, challenging gallery-going siblings and the very seductive nature I experienced a similar of nostalgic narratives, by 1. Tate, ‘The Tate Galleries and Slavery’, Tate.org.uk, About us, History of Tate, www. thrilling sensation when we stepping into the atrium of tate.org.uk/about-us/history-tate/tate-galleries-and-slavery#:~:text=While%20 nodded furtively at people Tate Britain and shouting, it%20is%20important%20to,part%20they%20derive%20their%20existence, of colour who’d braved the “We are here. We reach!” n accessed 26 April 2021. Reflections on the Year 3 Project 19

Ego Ahaiwe Sowinski Ego is an archivist, artist and is pursuing a PhD at Chelsea College of Arts (UAL)/Tate Britain. Her doctoral research places much needed critical attention on Jamaican born sculptor Ronald Moody (1900 - 1984). She holds an MA in Archives and Record Management, International (UCL). She is a member of the Remembering Olive Morris Collective 2.0 and archivist for the Rita Keegan Archive Project. Her practice aims to develop collective, collaborative, archival strategies in relation to physical space, environment, the public and the personal in relation to the Diaspora.

Across the Imaginative Threshold of the Future of 4Cultural Equity Reflections on the Year 3 Project 20

Across the Imaginative Threshold of the Future of Cultural Equity

A society that does not value imagination is one that has ensured its future will be a clone of its present traumas. This is why the global shift in the pitch of our generational frequency is so wondrous. If you have not heard, we are embracing a discourse of dreams and dignity versus one solely of struggle.¹ - Mark Gonzales

Ego Ahaiwe Sowinski There was something powerful and quite Britain. I started to ask myself when exhilarating, experiencing the sound of was the first time I visited an art gallery? intermittent (joyful) shouts of “WE ARE I had taken my art GCSE whilst in Sixth HERE!” from the children visiting Tate Form. I loved painting and pursued an art Britain’s Duveen Galleries, last year foundation. Art became both a way of (pre-Covid-19), as they spotted their channeling and managing grief and a photo in the Steve McQueen Year 3 pathway to gain further independence. exhibition. It felt like young people were As a teenager I would have described it in being encouraged to take up space in the terms of a passport to freedom. And yet, gallery unapologetically, which didn’t feel I calculated I was 18 years old the first time like the norm in such places. The Tate that I went to an art gallery, this calculation Year 3 Project created quite the buzz, and created a wonder of ‘why?’ I asked those excitement. I remember it got people secondary school friends I am still in touch talking about it, engaging with it. It with if they remember us ever visiting an captured something that felt like a art gallery during our school years? They contagious energy, and the familiarity of responded with a resounding no. Not that the photographic format of the school class that meant we’d never engaged in the arts 1. M. Gonzales, In Times of Terror, photo seemed to allow everybody and and culture, but that our relationship to Wage Beauty (Wage Beauty x anybody to engage in this ambitious art these nationally funded institutions was Think Disrupt, 2014), 51 project which prompted conversations possibly as limited as the Year 3 about the future, the future of this participants were describing now. 2. Tate, ‘Turner Prize-winning artist and generation of children and the kind of Oscar-winning filmmaker Steve McQueen In reflecting on Year 3 and cultural equity world they would inherit. There was an unveils his epic portrait of London’s Year for this essay, I turned to Steve McQueen’s inbuilt equity, diversity, inclusivity: this 3 pupils’, Tate.org.uk, Exhibitions and description of the project as capturing the could be you or somebody that you knew. Events, at Tate Britain, Steve McQueen future in a milestone year: Turner Prize-winning artist and Oscar- Year 3, www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/ winning filmmaker Steve McQueen’s own 'There’s an urgency to reflect on who we tate-britain/exhibition/steve-mcqueen- unassuming Year 3 (Y3) class photo, shared are and our future [...] to have a visual year-3, accessed 26 April 2021. in press coverage and during the launch in reflection on the people who make this city 2018, attached a level of inspiration and work. I think it’s important and, in some aspiration for the possible futures of the ways, urgent.'2 76,146 young people who participated. I thought back to what the world looked like During the Year 3 school and family visits, in my milestone year, 1980/81. I was teachers and parents would often mention attending Houndsfield Primary School, that it was their first time to visit Tate which backed onto Jubilee Park with its Reflections on the Year 3 Project 21

youth club called ‘The Hut’, with after a Van Gogh using chicken wire and some school and summer youth provision and black, yellow and green synthetic wool. Houndsfield Library, across the street from In hindsight, this college visit took me the primary school. I wish I knew the name across an artistic threshold of a perceived of the librarians; it was such a welcoming exclusion. The invitation to go into a Mr. Johnson was space. In musical terms the landscape was space and building in a city where such maybe one of full – Adam and the Ants were introducing institutional buildings can often appear Prince Charming and George Benson was all intimidating and not necessarily appear the first times about Giving Me the Night, Irene Cara’s Fame to be inviting. I encountered was giving me a new found love for scissor It would be 20 years later, through the jumps off of tables, and The Gang were in a person in world of archives, that I would be exposed Celebration mode, Bucks Fizz were Making to collections of Black British art from the educational terms Your Mind Up; Thatcher was in power and interwar period to contemporary times. the 1981 uprisings happened in London that wanted the Through the work of historian Dr. Gemma (Brixton), Birmingham (Handsworth), Romain and geographer Dr. Caroline best for all his Liverpool (Toxteth), Manchester (Moss Bressey’s work at the Equiano Centre, UCL Side), and Leeds (Chapeltown). A students, a clear Geography Department and their burgeoning Black Arts Movement was historically curated exhibitions such as system of equity, visibly on the horizon and making its mark. Spaces of Black Modernism. Or, at the though not with Around this time, I was introduced to a P.E. Women’s Art Library, Goldsmiths in teacher called Mr. Johnson, who brought residency exploring the Women of Colour a one-size fits all dynamic, new things like ‘pop mobility’, Index artist files, with arts and archives approach a form of aerobics, to our school. He research collective X Marks The Spot. Or introduced me to gymnastics, taking that visits of respite to visit Lubaina Himid’s extra step of convincing my mother to let Making Histories Visible Archive in Preston. me attend Saturday gymnastics class in However, I have sometimes wondered what Enfield, part of the British Amateur my art education experience would have Gymnastics Association (BAGA). I now been like if I had seen exhibitions like No frame this moment as someone who took Colour Bar (2015), Soul of a Nation (2017), and an interest in supporting the expansion of Get Up Stand Up Now (2019) alongside my immediate world and space exhibitions like Sensation: Young British encouraging independence. An opportunity Artists (1990). to do something I would probably never For a period, I worked in Tulse Hill, South have considered. I can also recognise on London as a youth worker. Year 3 reminded reflection that Mr. Johnson was maybe one me of when I was working at Hightrees of the first times I encountered a person in Community Development Trust, educational terms that wanted the best for facilitating a group on a Wednesday and all his students, a clear system of equity, Friday called Choices Young Women’s Group. though not with a one-size fits all approach, The group was invited to produce artwork always providing variations so whatever as part of a public arts commission by your ability you could participate. Inclusion Arts and Jason Gibilaro in 2003. My first experience of a gallery was the The commission was for a mural on National Gallery, London. The reason Brixton’s railway bridge part of Destination why I remember this memory so vividly Brixton’s International Trade Expo.3 Choices was because it was the first time I saw a Young Women’s Group provided the artwork Van Gogh painting in the ‘flesh’. My older for the letter ‘T’, in a mural that would read sister had a Vincent van Gogh book by ‘B Our Guest’. I remember the sense of Hans Bronkhorst (I still have her copy). pride the young women expressed, when I had fingered through this book a lot, they got to see what they had been a part alongside others on our family’s much- of, making the place where they lived just loved rickety bookshelf. What I remember that bit brighter. There had been something from this visit to see the real thing was the really powerful in the transformation from surprise of seeing the texture, the paint the moment of working together on an A4 3. M.Urban, ‘Design competition launched raised and poking off of the canvas. There sheet of paper and then seeing that activity to replace Brixton’s ‘B Our Guest’ bridge was no comparison to the 2D version in translated into something larger than life artwork’, Brixton Buzz, 26 Sept 2017, the book, though the book is beautifully for all their community to experience. I https://www.brixtonbuzz.com/2017/09/ illustrated. We were given an assignment learnt how important it was to create those design-competition-launched-to- to reimagine/recreate one of the paintings opportunities for young people to see replace-brixtons-b-our-guest-bridge- and I produced a poor rendition based on themselves as part of something bigger. artwork, accessed 27 April 2021. Reflections on the Year 3 Project 22

Which brings me back to Year 3 where long term engagement, building trust considerable effort was made by the project and relationships to encourage access for partners to make sure the young people all, and a role in decision making. Maybe involved were able to see themselves as adopting an approach that reflects the The principle of part of something bigger. The project ‘Sankofa’ philosophy, a Twi word from looking back at received considerable investment in the Akan people of Ghana which literally financial terms with a significant amount translated means ‘go back and get it’, the past in order going towards staff time to ensure that and refers to the search for knowledge to understand the young people understood what they were being based on constant examination and part of when they had their photo taken at thoughtful methodical investigation of the present and make school and that all the new visitors to Tate past. The principle of looking back at the positive progress. Britain felt welcomed. There is no getting past in order to understand the present away from the difference resources make to and make positive progress. the often intangible but essential back-end Cultural Institutions are the custodians of work that is often required with such past and future cultural knowledge, so it projects to ensure its success, particularly seems fitting that they would think about in relation to a positive experience for all how they are best positioned to inform involved. However this tends to be in positive change. There is something to be relation to the artwork itself, which raises said for how we audit progress, beyond the question of what more long lasting and the end of the session evaluation sheet, wide-ranging changes are needed for us to but over a longer timeline period. How think more readily of cultural institutions do we measure the change taking place, as equitable spaces. or how do we measure the static energy For me, I think of the importance of of things that don’t seem to ever change? outreach, equitable partnerships that It requires a mindful monitoring that nurture, healthy reflective relationships, reflects a diverse value system and holds shared and equal powers, and the need cultural institutions accountable to all to carve space and trust to do things its constituents, alongside the need to differently; something that is done so acknowledge the burnout and fatigue well through community spaces which that exists around what to some feels our nation’s cultural institutions could like a never-ending conversation around learn from and support. Lamenting over audience development and equity without community spaces that no longer exist, much evidence of change. The reality is I have found myself wondering how those these conversations have been going on for still standing in this current climate are decades. being supported or invested in; spaces like Organisations like the Black and Asian the Karibu Education Centre, formally the Studies Association (BASA), formed in Abeng, in Brixton, a crucial longstanding 1991, to work in the realms of education, community space and resource, that museums and libraries to foster research functions as the alternative to the world on Black and Asian people in Britain; the wide web system of ‘just Google it’. Here 2005 Mayor’s Commission on African notice boards still reign supreme and so and Asian Heritage, Delivering Shared do discussions, groups, workshops, training Heritage was about developing a strategy and meetings, all ways in which you can and a series of recommendations, through access information about what’s going on in exploration, with the aim of reinforcing local and wider community. These spaces a commitment to promote heritage and can be like springboards and stepping- history within the capital, in response stones to intimate access to cultural to the marginalisation of African and institutions and they often play the role of Asian heritage. Or the 2016, Black Arts creating a bridge to trust and access. and Modernism (BAM) project, which The role these community space investigates how artists of African and ecosystems have, should never be Asian descent feature in the British art undervalued, neither should what it has narrative. And the National Collection’s taken to still be standing in this moment. audit of artworks by Black, Caribbean and It can’t just be about the end game of Asian artists in over 30 major national and ‘bums on seats’, or numbers, or box ticking. regional public collections of art across Instead I think the urgency is how we England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland, reflect on the events of summer 2020 which culminated in a searchable and use this as a basis to forge authentic, database. Reflections on the Year 3 Project 23

…opportunities shape services with a ‘by us, for us and our community’ philosophy has proved invaluable in addressing actual identified need

The question remains however, how shape services with a ‘by us, for us and could projects and queries like these our community’ philosophy has proved enrich and inform the discourse around invaluable in addressing actual identified the curation of permanent collections, need. It was in these spaces that I was educational programmes and the design fortunate to access the wealth of knowledge of how visitors experience cultural and expertise that is often lurking in plain institutional spaces and artworks? sight throughout the community we work Moving beyond aspirational statements and live. In my experience the experts are towards palatable, grounded change. Aye often around us, sitting around our tables, Ikomi and Eibhlin Jones’s, spreadsheet at meetings, attending consultations, created in June 2020 and platformed events, developing programs that bring by the White Pube, documented Black wider diverse audiences in, working/ Lives Matter statements and responses volunteering with cultural institutions, by art, cultural and heritage entities. It or working independently or adjacent to is maybe one example or tool in how we develop new production, knowledge and measure and chart the journey to move ways to disseminate, often filling the beyond what researcher Hassan Vawda chasm left by and in cultural institutions. said in his speculative essay: ‘a history of For me, reaching out and working in maintaining a cultural supremacy that authentic partnerships may be where speaks to the very foundations of the the future of cultural institutions lies if violence that they are showing solidarity they are to become places of equity. n for’. 4 How can we reflect on the events of summer 2020 and use these reflections as a basis to forge authentic, long term engagement, and an embedded cultural change, particularly in regard to the role of decision making and agenda setting? The importance of informal opportunities for lifelong learning alongside community spaces, have continued to be essential spaces in personal terms. They have created alternative pathways to build community wealth, networks, knowledge and autonomy. And opportunities to

4. H. Vawda, ‘A statement from a ‘national public cultural institution’: BLACK LIVES MATTER’, Medium, 6 Jun 2020, hassanevawda. medium.com/a-statement-from-a-national-public-cultural-institution-black-lives-matter-893d76d3b133, accessed 27 April 2021 Reflections on the Year 3 Project 24

Pauline Tambling Pauline recently retired following a career working in the arts, most recently as Chief Executive of Creative & Cultural Skills, a charity supporting young people into careers in the creative industries. Previous roles include as Director of Development at Arts Council England and Director of Education for the Royal Opera House. She is currently a trustee of Roundhouse London, Masterclass TRH and Voluntary Arts.

Year 3: Achieving Scale and Quality in a Cultural5 Endeavour Reflections on the Year 3 Project 25

Year 3: Achieving Scale and Quality in a Cultural Endeavour

As a working-class child living in a very rural community, arts experiences outside the school itself were very rare but my English class was once taken to London for the Royal Shakespeare Company’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (the famous one directed by Peter Brook and designed by Sally Jacobs). It was just before the O-level examination, and suddenly the play made sense and sowed the seeds for a new and long-term interest in the arts. Arguably children in London are within easy reach of professional arts projects but nevertheless I have always believed that the quality of the engagement with arts organisations is more important that the quantity of visits. Even as a teenager I was aware of the extraordinary effort it took to organise a class visit to the theatre and that investment, by teachers, children, and parents, needed to be justified. Too often art galleries and theatres think they are doing schools a favour by engaging with them at all.

Pauline Tambling This raises the question, with safeguarding, data images of a generation of what is the best way protection and general 7-year-olds across London for national cultural health and safety making as a collection of traditional organisations to engage the administration of school photographs with schools? More anything extra-curricular, presented together as a pressingly what makes out-of-school or with single artwork. Drawing on sense in the current third-party organisations memories of his own school context reflecting the challenging. It’s not a ‘level photograph at Little Ealing stresses schools are under playing field’. It was hard Primary School in 1977, following Covid-19? The for many schools to engage McQueen wanted to explore arts in schools had already with external partners the idea of ‘the future in the been ‘squeezed’ long before before Covid-19, but in the present’ within a ‘portrait the pandemic following current climate, where so of citizenship’ which would a number of curriculum many children have missed reflect contemporary ‘reforms’ over many years. months of education time London by literally placing a Some schools offer only in school, it can only get generation of 7- and 8-year- Without the the minimum of what harder. How can cultural olds on gallery walls and schools’ the National Curriculum organisations respond? in an outdoor exhibition requires whilst other across the city. The idea was co-operation governors and headteachers The Tate Year 3 Project, led to invite all 115,000 7- and and enthusiasm, do all they can to fund the by Tate, A New Direction 8-year-olds in London to staff and resources to make and Artangel presents take part and to present the idea would their schools ‘arts rich’. one potential model. It their photographs together have been a As well as curriculum and began as the idea of the as a single massive artwork examination demands, all award-winning artist Steve in Tate Britain preceded non-starter. schools need to comply McQueen to capture the by an outdoor exhibition Reflections on the Year 3 Project 26

on advertising hoardings designers, printers, partners in its making. It across all the London media partners, framers was inconceivable that the boroughs. Without the and installers. There children would not have schools’ co-operation and was an impressive list the opportunity to see enthusiasm, the idea would of funding partners the finished installations. have been a non-starter. including foundations, Ensuring that as many trusts, philanthropists, children as possible By the time the exhibition and public bodies. This could see the work meant opened in the Duveen was a project that in some refocusing Tate Britain’s Galleries at Tate Britain on ways defied classification: visitor-facing services to 12 November 2019, 76,146 it was both a learning accommodate 600 young children were involved from project and an artwork. visitors per day to the 1,504 London schools across point of erecting a special all the London Boroughs. marquee in the grounds Until Covid-19 restrictions as an education centre. came in in March 2020, Tate Britain hosted 600 young The lead partners in the visitors per day to see project with producers, the work, an epic portrait This was a project ArtsMediaPeople, had long made up of 3,128 individual experience of running class photographs. Over that in some ways projects from their different 7 million people saw defied classification: perspectives. Together, huge versions of 50 of the the three organisations images in the outdoor it was both a brought expertise in exhibition across London learning project commissioning and including on streets, station presenting contemporary platforms and underground and an artwork. arts practice along with stations, and a ‘takeover’ a deep engagement of the platforms at Oxford with schools and young Gallery education projects Circus and Pimlico. learners across the capital. often respond to an None of the individual The credits for the final artist, an exhibition or elements of Year 3 was project read more like those individual work of art but particularly unusual or of a feature film than a Year 3 placed a learning especially challenging. The typical gallery education programme at the heart component parts were tried project and show the of a major contemporary and tested. The challenge complexity of the enterprise. art commission. In was in the size, reach and Like a feature film, the commissioning the work complexity of the enterprise project started with a with Steve McQueen, within a fixed timescale, its seemingly simple concept Tate and Artangel were artistic ambition and the followed by a feasibility also commissioning the number of schools involved. stage with fundraising and contributions of the schools The experience had to be detailed scoping moving which in turn needed something the schools and to assembling a team, expert brokerage from children would be proud to production of the work, A New Direction’s team be part of, and something the indoor and outdoor led by Steve Moffitt and the children would always exhibitions, and public Rebecca Branch. Curatorial remember. Like any engagement with the work. staff would normally be complex enterprise, the And like a feature film, a involved in creating an project was full of risk. partnership came together exhibition and a learning specifically to deliver and participation team The interface with schools the project. The project would provide the interface managed by A New extended over three years with young people visiting Direction and the producers for which planning systems the gallery. Here all the included everything from were built to achieve one gallery’s staff, from curators building the website, to unified artistic enterprise. to security, were involved safeguarding procedures, Over the course of the in almost every aspect booking arrangements, project the partners were of both the commission photography workshops, joined by curatorial teams, and the learning project. training sessions, resource producers, administrators, The children were the development, and photographers, editors, work’s subject and were ongoing school liaison. Reflections on the Year 3 Project 27

Most importantly, A were rated as quality that Steve McQueen was New Direction acted as experiences. Teachers found an award-winning artist guardians of the children’s their workshop days well- associated with a world- interests. With deadlines organised and inspirational: famous gallery and that the to meet, a project of this many said that they would artwork would be viewed scale could easily privilege use the ideas and resources by millions of people. It was the end result over an again or recommend them essential to the reputations inclusive process for the to colleagues. There was of Tate and Artangel that young people. Careful enthusiasm for being able the artwork was curated planning was critical: to take time out from to the very highest of without an overarching normal curriculum activity standards. The quality of time-plan the project to do something different, the individual photographs, could have easily ‘run out and a ‘wow factor’ following the extent to which they of road’ if, for example, all both the day in school with met the brief and how they the photography sessions the photographers and the were presented were all across London could not gallery visit. The gallery important. be organised within a visit was a highlight for Year 3 started with an single school year. Year 3s most of the schools. from Year 4 wouldn’t be irresistible idea that the same thing at all. Reviews and press coverage worked for the particular of Year 3 were extremely age group and caught positive. This was never teachers’ and parents’ assured: there have been imaginations. If schools many debates about how are to sign up in numbers, to review and judge arts then the proposition has to Could we imagine that all projects involving children. be exactly right. Teachers In this case, the role of were able to incorporate the young people in a city like schools and students was themes of the project across London could be involved validated by the positivity several curriculum areas around the artwork itself. including PSHE (personal, with arts organisations in a Half of the schools had not social, health, and economic series of ambitious ‘at scale’ engaged with an art gallery education). It was relevant. before, so this project Training was organised for projects over the course of managed to reach schools the photographers and they their school careers? who don’t normally take up were given check-sheets external arts opportunities. for how each session could This does not necessarily run and how to work with Schools signed up to the mean that they are not the teachers and support project in large numbers ‘arts-rich’ schools, as some staff during the sessions. because it was both an school leaders feel that their Artists often resent such irresistible idea and school-based arts provision ‘strait jackets’ but here they ‘manageable’ in terms is strong enough without embraced the brief whilst of time commitment involving professionals, making daily adjustments and effort. There was a but it does suggest that to suit particular settings. minimum requirement the partners made the case The aim to engage all of one workshop with a for a collaboration with a London’s Year 3 (Y3) photographer in the school, professional gallery. students meant that the with the option to visit Tate project was automatically Britain to see the finished If projects like Year 3 are inclusive with adjustments work in the following school to be replicated there are made to ensure the year. Teachers had access some lessons to learn. involvement of all the young to excellent classroom Ambition and scale are people including those with resources covering many important: the project Special Educational Needs curriculum areas. They has to be worth doing. and/or Disability (SEND) liked the website and The children were part and this followed through online booking systems. of a project that included to the gallery visits. The workshop sessions not just a cluster of other elicited positive responses schools but most schools in At a time when schools find from the schools and their year in London. It was it more difficult to engage the photographers, and important to the schools with professional arts Reflections on the Year 3 Project 28

organisations, projects like Year 3 offer an interesting model. Could we imagine that all young people in a city like London could Projects of this scale offer teachers and be involved with arts young people something special beyond organisations in a series of ambitious ‘at scale’ the school curriculum: a chance to take projects over the course part in something shared, thought- of their school careers brokered by organisations provoking, creative, big and qualifying like A New Direction (an as a ‘once in a lifetime’ experience. Arts Council of England Bridge organisation) with a range of professional arts (EPQ) in sixth forms. The part in something shared, partners? Young people project reached 213 Further thought-provoking, creative, could experience a series Education Colleges and big and qualifying as a ‘once of relevant special projects 44,000 students and was in a lifetime’ experience. across different artforms repeated the following A challenge for arts working with galleries, year. Arts organisations organisations and funders is theatres, libraries and arts in England have engaged how to put young people at centres. Such projects need with schools for over forty the heart of programming. not necessarily need the years, but the context of Year 3 started with the involvement of well-known this work has changed idea of young people as artists (but why not?) dramatically. Opportunities both the subject and the but they must be special, to visit venues or attend co-creators of an artwork. tailored to the young people performances are still The result was a piece themselves, beyond what is important but increasing that reflected and spoke possible in the classroom demands on schools make to all young Londoners, or within the curriculum, longer-term projects without concessions, or to justify the time spent in harder to justify or get explanations, or indeed organising them, and the taken up by only the most careful labelling. We have commitment of the young enthusiastic schools, seen years of gallery people and their teachers. leaving many out. It would education where the As in Year 3 this might be good to add an option artworks are the focus, how involve feasibility work with for most schools to be able can we turn things round ‘ambassador schools’ to to take part in occasional to put young visitors at test propositions, session significant projects of the the centre as co-creators content and systems. In scale of Year 3. Adding and co-curators? n another example 14-18 ‘projects at scale’ to our NOW, the World War 1 arts education repertoire Centenary Art Commissions, would be an important with ArtsMediaPeople response to the practical worked with Creative challenges our schools & Cultural Skills who are facing post-Covid-19. brokered a relationship Such projects are more with Further Education challenging to organise Colleges across the UK and require brokerage in response to the artist beyond what a typical Bob and Roberta Smith’s ‘Learning and Participation provocation, ‘What does team’ can provide in an Peace mean to you?’ individual arts organisation, Younger artists across as demonstrated by the the country worked with contribution of A New post-16 students, resources Direction in the case of endorsed by the Awarding Year 3. Projects of this Body, UAL, were produced, scale offer teachers and and parallel work took place young people something as part of the Extended special beyond the school Project Qualification curriculum: a chance to take Reflections on the Year 3 Project 29

Anna Cutler Director of Learning and latterly Director of Learning & Research at Tate (2010 - 2021) With 30 years’ experience working in education and cultural settings at a local, national, and international level, Anna’s central purpose throughout her career has been to explore and improve educational interventions in a range of cultural and cross-disciplinary arts environments. In September 2016 she initiated Tate Exchange, a civic space aimed at building dialogue around art, society, and the urgent and complex issues facing us today.

Year 3: Elements of Risk 6 Reflections on the Year 3 Project 30

Year 3: Elements of Risk

Risk is generally not a welcome guest, particularly when children are involved. However, within the arts and creativity risk is often a necessary feature for pushing at boundaries and towards new ideas. Holding and shaping risk is part of the practice for artists and organisations that work with them. The Tate Year 3 Project had this in abundance, from risks if you did something to risks if you didn’t, organisational risks, safeguarding risks, logistical risks and financial risks; whichever way you turned in this project risk was a constant companion.

Anna Cutler As happens more often than is probably that would be needed to achieve this, though acknowledged by those working within complex the detail did not at first find its way into the arts projects, some of the best things can come new partnership plans between Tate, where the from embracing the risk that accompanies the gallery exhibition would take place, and Artangel, unplanned and the unforeseen. Of course, no- who were managing the organisation of the one wants too much of it in their professional exhibition in the public realm. lives because it could be chaotic, impossible Following discussion with the Schools and to timetable and quite frankly a nightmare to Teachers team at Tate, it was accepted that the manage. It’s also unlikely that funders would scale of the project simply wasn’t feasible in its jump at the idea of supporting organisations to entirety for them to manage in terms of their ‘see what pops up,’ but the opportunistic and staffing capacity or existing work commitments. the unexpected can make for some inspiring Connected, were risks around time, logistics, outcomes - if the conditions are right. and cost as well as the fact that the remit for This essay looks at these conditions and how a photograph to be taken was different from they underpinned the educational and wider their usual approach (outlined in We Are Here! schools dimension of the Steve McQueen: Observations and Analysis of the Year 3 Class Visits) Year 3 exhibitions at Tate Britain in November in which participation would normally be rooted 2019, and on billboards throughout London. It within the practice of creative learning bringing aims to explore aspects of the project and the ‘an audience into conversation with artworks organisational environments in which the project and usually alongside an artist as well as their ‘popped -up,’ as well as making visible the high teachers.’ The suggestion was, therefore, that we level of risk involved. either kept to the original plan with the logistics and arrangements of photographing pupils, The beginnings of this project reach back as early or that we rethought the proposal to create as 2010 with Steve McQueen and Artangel. In optimum conditions for taking photographs late 2016, A New Direction was commissioned in schools in which we also created a bespoke to produce a feasibility study to look at the educational dimension to the project enabling requirements of organising photographs of as arts - learning experiences with, through and many London Year 3 (Y3) pupils as possible to about the project for all the pupils. In either create one of the most ambitious visual portraits case, additional external expertise was required, of citizenship ever undertaken, in one of the but the latter would offer an unprecedented world’s largest and most diverse cities, explored opportunity for the project to reach thousands of through the vehicle of the traditional school students with deep engagement, inspired by the class photograph. The feasibility study was ideas that the project so richly invited and with undertaken by Jen Crook and accounted for the the children’s voices writ large. scale, school requirements, and extent of staffing Reflections on the Year 3 Project 31

The stakeholders (Steve McQueen, Tate and So, what of risk, if this was known from the Artangel) agreed to the expanded programme outset and the scrupulous detail was in place? of learning as well as the need for an additional Were mitigations not put into action? The partner organisation to meet many, if not most answer to this is yes, of course they were, but of the schools-centred aspects of the brief. outlined below are areas of risk that never It was also understood that further funding go away, whatever scale or timeframe one is would need to be sought to make this ambitious working to with young people. Bigger can (and and complex educational plan possible. A New did) make the project riskier, simply owing to Direction, as a cultural and creative ‘bridge’ numbers and reach (more people, partners and with schools in London, was contracted as a pupils equals more room for error) but the aim in partner owing to their unique and specific this essay is to begin to reach under the surface existing relationship with schools, their of the project’s skin to make the tacit explicit, strategic role within London and their skills the invisible – visible, what have we to learn? and ethos. Gemma Clarke and Erin Barnes Aligning the artistic and from ArtsMediaPeople were also contracted learning programme as producers who had the complicated task of Steve McQueen had a very working to three organisations (Tate, Artangel clear vision and image of and A New Direction) in order to create a the exhibitions (at Tate seamless whole. and on the billboards). The The artwork spoke of the Those involved knew some of the risks and what artwork spoke of the present present and the future, these might mean: that they were up against and the future, of hope and time and school timetables, that once embarked aspiration as well as to the of hope and aspiration as upon failure was not an option, that no partner uncertainty and contingency well as to the uncertainty wished to compromise quality or integrity, and that this potential invokes. that this new learning aspect had to be authentic Given the newly agreed and contingency that this to the artist’s concept and of significant value to educational initiative, the potential invokes. the schools if they were to invest. The common learning teams, with A features were that each party had years of New Direction at centre- experience, expert staff in their separate areas stage, needed to develop a programme and key of specialism, trust within their sector, and an themes for the pupils’ exploration that were true approach that supported risk- taking with a to the artist’s vision. It is always a possibility confidence to meet this head on as part of the that in the discussion and enthusiasm of ‘other process. In addition, although the budget was parties’ (those other than Steve McQueen), ideas underwritten, funding needed to be raised might stretch beyond the scope or focus of the along the way. These conditions represented project, leaning into schools’ or organisations’ the organisational environments into which own concerns and interests. Sometimes this the learning dimension landed – or perhaps one is helpful to a project as it brings with it the might say from which it grew – but underpinned experience and knowledge of the participants, the ability to attend to the necessary risks, and sometimes it is not and becomes something the ways in which these were navigated. It is else altogether – another project. So being clear probably fair to say that they also grew from and authentic to the idea was vital, especially an ambition and appetite that might be more at such scale and with so many involved where difficult for smaller or any single organisation confusion could get in the way of the clarity of to achieve. In this instance the partners enabled design. a whole that was far more than the sum of its This might sound like a relatively small risk parts which also extended to the artist’s gallery but the potential for mismatch between (Thomas Dane Gallery), the media partners different elements of a complex project is real (BBC and Into Film), the curatorial leads at and a fundamental issue. It has derailed more Tate, and many other departments or teams projects than I care to mention; either with the across the organisations with some specialists artistic programme being pulled into an odd beyond. A forensic review of the scoping study shape or with learning as an awkward add- was completed with all needs re-set. The result on clanking behind the wedding car. Getting of which was the queen of all Gantt charts in its alignment established at the outset was the scrupulous detail. Once signed up to, there was undercurrent of everything involved with no looking back, and structures and systems respect to the learning programme and the were developed to bring things together across schools’ experience. It formed the to-and-fro all partners, in which the commitment to the of much conversation with the curators, artist, artistic idea and the values that sat behind it gallery, and organisational partners. From this did much of the invisible stitching. Reflections on the Year 3 Project 32

many judgements and decisions were made from the artistic programme and lacking in relative to the schools’ needs and this generated value as a contribution and continuum of the not just authenticity and integrity to the idea, idea. The engagement and investment when exhibition look and feel, but appropriately achieved wass high and when the children of maintained the artistic stakes, whilst keeping Year 3 visited the exhibition they saw not only risk in the right kind of check. Getting this themselves but had a contextual and conceptual wrong has the potential to diminish ‘the whole’ understanding of the work, which takes us to the and one really does need to understand this second element of risk to be considered. as a risk in order to maximise the bits you Safeguarding and collaborating to manage risk want and minimise the bits you all do not. It is a feature of creative learning that it Three themes were agreed with the artist: encourages critical thinking and asking Identity, Community, and Future. All elements, questions: ‘Why this?’, ‘What’s going on in this resources and content were shaped by these idea?’, ‘Who is it for?’ etc. These are questions as well as the way in which the project was that look beyond individual and internal worlds approached: the schools and Y3 cohorts were to the ways in which, in this instance, artistic communities in themselves, with multiple work is made manifest - and where. This seemed identities and infinite futures. These themes especially important given that the children generated new conditions that created a and schools were the subject of the artwork and tight framework for decision making and the were therefore at the centre of any meaning development of educational (schools based) generation. Some of this is well articulated in the content. All three themes were consistent companion essays of Colin Grant, Ego Ahaiwe with the project’s design but also rich ground Sowinski, Christine Lai, James Broadley and for learning and could be given a light or deep Aoife O’Doherty that highlight race, power and dive by teachers and privilege within traditional pupils, which a wide range art histories, the museum, of online and in-gallery and the public domain. resources and activities At a time when Brexit sought to generate. This was still in process and was the endeavour, to within a culture that may invite ways of approaching This was one of the be hostile to difference these issues that reflected most aligned projects this created risk for many back into the project of the participants. developing the children’s I have ever encountered, Safeguarding the children understanding and insight which is credit to the involved in this project was and drawing on their wide a huge and very serious range of lived experience. artist, who also invested undertaking. There were In this they became active a lot of personal time multiple and various risks participants, able to be in the process of taking the creative in their own right, in meeting the teachers photographs, in showing as well as the subject of and students involved. them in public and on the idea. It’s a powerful social media platforms. and unusual combination. There are also strict rules This was one of the most aligned projects I concerning digital images of children and their have ever encountered, which is credit to the storage as well as for visits and workshops, with artist, who also invested a lot of personal time naming and identification not permitted. The in meeting the teachers and students involved. first response to this risk within the overarching It is also of credit to the extended partners and risk was presenting the idea to a small number the time that was taken to attend to the risk; of schools to test the water: several thought it to ask good, if sometimes difficult, questions of was fantastic, a few said it was too risky and each other and revisit this when needed. Steve that they would not take part, others that unless McQueen always had the final artistic say but they could have some guarantees, they didn’t was hugely generous and very invested in the feel that parents or carers would sign up to the power of arts education, which meant that project, and each and every one of them involved the project had cohesion and punched at even would have to do so if a child was to take part. greater weight. The risk, obviously, was that the In all honesty, with social media so prevalent, project failed to achieve this integration of ethos, the project partners could not guarantee that activity, and idea, in which case the individual images would not be shared either from the parts might be effective, but the expanded billboards or the gallery and they therefore learning programme may have been separated made explicit the risks and the duty of care Reflections on the Year 3 Project 33

into account (amongst the myriad of other exceptional contributions the curator, Clarrie Wallis, made). Every attention to detail in the work around the exhibitions was taken, in the Risk is not always a positive story outdoor placements of the billboard images and certainly there are challenges to the workshops at schools and within the gallery to where the children ate their lunch. en route, but what all partners It was apparent in the Visitor Experience brought to this project was the support, in the marketing and finance teams, in HR and estates. In fact, this particular risk ability to positively challenge one for safeguarding children brought with it the another, to push for quality and creation of teams that never existed and new and collaborative ways of working to great for the best possible experience effect. A huge wave of energy, support and of the participants, able to hear endeavour was generated from almost every corner of staff at Tate who saw the children as the better argument and have their ‘charge’, they celebrated their presence integrity to the idea. and endorsed the leaps and shouts within the building: “WE ARE HERE!” Risk is not always a positive story and certainly there are challenges en route, but what all and mitigation that was being put in place. partners brought to this project was the ability The project invited on board legal expertise to positively challenge one another, to push for from Farrer and Co and NSPCC, as well as an quality and for the best possible experience of experienced high- profile individual, Tanya the participants, able to hear the better argument Joseph, who had been involved with a similar and have integrity to the idea. Its clarity enabled scale public- facing event This Girl Can. Many the risks to be taken, not just for the sake of systems were put in place and training was pragmatism, but because they were authentic built into the project with each risk reviewed to the project, to the needs of the exhibitions and at every point for every aspect. It was extensive to the children involved. Knowing and shaping and thorough work for which ArtsMediaPeople risk is a key part of creativity, in art, in an deserve particular recognition. The social exhibition, in learning. It turned out that it context meant that there could be risk around belonged to all those involved and was central negative responses to race and gender as well as to Steve McQueen Year 3. n for those with particular needs, given trolling and the lack of control possible over aggressive social media posting. But as schools and parents began to sign up to the project, understanding and accepting the risks, the confidence grew and it was clear that it was felt that the bigger risk would be not to undertake this project, to evade the complex issues and debates that the public brought to it (not necessarily intended through the idea). Indeed, some schools actively promoted their difference, pleased to have their students visible and included. For example, one headteacher of a special school that helped test the waters described the project “as a platform to showcase our wonderful children; it is so important to us that SEND children are not invisible, that they are recognised as part of the community and are visible in a range of public venues and society as a whole.” Managing the risks and the numbers of schools on billboards or how to communicate to schools and parents (but not the general public) on where their child was within the mass of faces in the exhibition was also complex and indeed the layout of the exhibition itself took this Reflections on the Year 3 Project 34

Tate Schools and Teachers Team with Eileen Carnell The Schools and Teachers Team planned the students’ visits with Effie Coe and Mónica Rivas Velásquez leading on the production of the resource. Alongside the team, Eileen Carnell, an independent researcher, collaborated in the observing and writing processes. These colleagues form part of a larger group involved in the planning of the visit, the bookings and training which are all framed by the team’s practice led by Leanne Turvey and Alice Walton. Tate Schools and Teachers Team: Effie Coe, Linda Da Silva Coiradas, Viana Gaudino, Anna-Marie Gray, Sophie Langsford, George Lyddiatt, Emma McGarry, Amy McKelvie, Stef Martin, Sophie Popper, Mónica Rivas Velásquez, Leanne Turvey, Alice Walton, and Elizabeth Went.

We Are Here! Observations and Analysis of the Year 3 7Class Visits Reflections on the Year 3 Project 35

We Are Here! Observations and Analysis of the Year 3 Class Visits

Before the Tate Year 3 Project, Tate had never engaged students and schools on this scale. During the exhibition, from 12th November 2019 to 16th March 2020, 600 students visited every weekday. For many schools and students this was their first experience of a cultural project and possibly their first engagement with the notion of an artist. Over 50% of the schools attending had not visited Tate before.¹

This text is about the Eileen Carnell impact of the resource on the students’ experiences What does a good project with children look and sound like? of the exhibition, what Their voices fill the air and echo around the gallery. Building a gradual this produced and its crescendo from a whisper to a mighty roar and back again, to a surprised ripples. The observer, silence. The students sing out: “I am here. You are here. We are here!” Eileen Carnell, spent This joyful and powerful assertion is in response to the invitation to wake up the whole gallery: a melodic dawn chorus. Our observations eight days with students, and the comments collected confirm this is a unique experience: their teachers, and Tate staff, witnessing all It’s great our portraits The adults join in and smile stages of the visit and are here alongside kings, which is unusual. I think it’s having conversations queens and old dudes. because being part of the along the way. Year 3 (Y3) student artwork themselves the kids know they have a right to be We are very important here. There is no tutting, no 1. Ascertained through cross as this is all about us. disapproval. Everyone, not just the kids, are liberated referencing past booking data (55% had Y3 student not visited Tate in the past 5 years). and spontaneous. 2. Year 3 Group Assistants received We are great and loud Teacher bespoke training sessions (including and much noisier than the use of resources with young people other groups. The gallery feels like a and SEND schools) to support each completely different place. Y3 student group visiting the Steve McQueen Year It’s alive. Normally you can 3 artwork. They were the most present hear a pin drop. Now it’s members of staff directly witnessing all The kids are responding aspects of the young people’s gallery so well to the challenge. buzzing. The children are visit and encounter with the artwork; I’m just overcome. being dared to occupy including each’s group’s arrival and the place and fill it. welcome, the journey to find their Year 3 Group Assistant² photograph, the use of the resource Member of the public and safely guided returns to schools. Reflections on the Year 3 Project 36

These comments paint a picture of Tate Schools and Teachers Team what the project sounded and looked like in the space of the gallery and How does a project like this evolve? art. In this case it was the students portray the sense that everyone, We, in the Schools and Teachers themselves. This in turn was about students, teachers, staff and ‘found team, were faced with unique equity and a broader challenge about audience’ felt it was a positive challenges and opportunities dominant narratives, who gets to make experience. The gallery becomes ‘a during the exhibition’s development meaning, be heard, and be valued. radical space of possibility’ and and points of engagement. resonates with the inspiring words of One of the profound differences of the bell hooks: ‘developing a sense of The number of school groups and the Year 3 experience was that the children community to generate excitement is amount of time students had available in the gallery, taking up space, being deeply affected by our interest in one in the gallery led us to the decision noisy, enjoying their visit, were the another, in hearing one another’s that a student resource would be the same children in the artwork. This voices, in recognizing one another’s best way of supporting students and was particular for the young people presence’.³ teachers to engage with and draw themselves but also for the general out their experiences of encountering As well as the sounds celebrating the visitor who was aware of witnessing the art and ideas in the gallery. students’ presence the vision of their young people ‘seeing’ themselves on the inhabiting the space is spectacular. The nature of the students’ visit was gallery walls. We felt that this afforded When the groups of students are particular in that it was ‘in company’, the young people a certain confidence finding their class photo they not just with classmates but with other in being in the space; without them resemble a flock of birds - a human schools; 76,146 students took part, the artwork did not exist! And this murmuration: ‘It’s like seeing a flock portrayed in 3,128 class photographs. drew attention to the value the team of starlings fly together in an This became a phenomenon that was places on the students’ presence in intelligent shape-shifting cloud, a widely commented upon in relation to the gallery, however they choose to single being moving and twisting in the experience of the general public. engage with the art they encounter. unpredictable formations’.⁴ The students created an atmosphere Key to our thinking was the desire which was seen as synonymous with On entering the gallery, the students to focus on and foster empathy, the artwork. They became the artwork, often gasp at the size of the supporting the notion of stepping not just through their photos but photographic work of art and then, into another’s shoes to consider the through their presence. We understand encouraged by the host, move around students’ experience, and how it this is not something that anyone, to find their photo amid the larger related to their own. We avoided being including Steve McQueen, expected. collection. Many cannot contain their drawn to difference in a negative/ The students’ presence became delight: “It’s so exciting, I can see me visual way, but rather talked about performative and fundamentally and my friends, and my teachers and seeing differences in relation to shaped how the artwork was ‘seen’. see how I have changed since the commonalities. We lifted the reflection photo was taken.” n The Tate Schools and Teachers Team’s on difference from what can be seen practice and planning process to bring it into the realm of empathy. Our practice at Tate brings an audience In approaching the writing of all our into conversation with artworks and resources and the use of language usually alongside an artist as well in them, we have high expectations as their teachers. It is a dialogic practice of students and take particular care 3. b. hooks, Teaching to Transgress: Education as the that welcomes participants into a to ensure that resources are open, Practice of Freedom (New York: Routledge, 1994), 8. process of discovery, building inviting, and clear. We put our trust meaning collectively and with an 4. H. O’Donoghue, Looking Back in Order to in the belief that students are capable emphasis placed on everybody’s Look Forward- Examining Archival Practice in of grappling with difficult ideas. voices being valued. the MoMA (Dublin, Ireland: IMMA, 2020) Welcoming groups with additional We endeavour to challenge received 5. Colleagues included members of the Schools and needs was key and central to the notions of gallery etiquette, to Teachers Team, drawing on extensive experience visits. We called these occasions ‘quiet confront assumptions about of inclusive practice within learning in gallery days’ from an organisational point of how to behave and encouraging settings including workshops, large scale projects view. There were five schools in the multiple ways of being with art. and resources developed in collaboration with artists morning, and five in the afternoon, and partners. Teachers from A New Direction’s It is our belief that an individual should to have more space and time, and a SEND Network were consulted and training was be welcomed to Tate, with all their flexible schedule to make the most of led by artists Richard Phoenix and Aysen Aktu, lived experiences, what they know the day. Preparation and training for who devised and delivered a session with the Year 3 and don’t know, what questions and these ‘quiet days’ was led by colleagues⁵. hosts that drew on their co-curated Art and SEND- ideas they hold and what culture they Rather than being the exception, Supporting Special Educational Needs and Disabilities bring. This is the optimum starting these days were modelled on what we Teachers’ Study Day that took place in May 2019. point for looking at and being with would want every Tate visit to be. n Reflections on the Year 3 Project 37

Eileen Carnell

The resource supporting encountering the artworks. While slightly differently to their usual the students’ visits they often look like booklets, they approach. As Steve McQueen was It cannot be underestimated what are not for reading, instead, they involved in all aspects of the project, this meticulous welcome offered are a platform to launch action. For the team centred on his ideas around students. They were seen, recognised Year 3, the booklet was extensive (12 which the team, many of whom are and hosted. From the welcoming pages) and held the team’s welcome practitioners, drew on their practice, statements in the resource, it can and strategies. The tone was crucial. rather than involving others. n be seen that students’ experiences It spoke directly to the individual are central. The team drew on their student, inviting them to come learning from previous student together with peers, and raise their experiences in the gallery to construct voice, and take up space. And from the new resource and used their one prompt to the next the students knowledge to make a safe space for gained ownership of the gallery. risk, expression, and exploration. The resource was a great success. The activities in the resource Students expressed their delight in supported by the encouragement receiving a copy. One said: “We got “ You have arrived of the host, inspired active this book ‘cos we’re really special. I at Tate Britain. participation, social engagement, can see my face in it.” The resource fun and collaborative learning – all was looked after carefully by the You are in a very hallmarks of the team’s particular students. Not a single one was left special artwork. approach: ‘co-constructivist behind. A teacher commented: You are also and dialogic models of learning, “The resource is brilliant and I’ll where individual’s experience and do more back at school with it as the audience. prior knowledge is recognized as I have done with another class.” Congratulations! contributing to the shared meaning- The resource drew heavily on ‘studio It is rare to visit an making of the whole group’.⁶ thinking’, embedding and channeling art gallery and see The team has a long-standing practice dispositions commonly used by your own face...” of producing resources. These are artists such as curiosity, testing, and often conceived and produced as experimenting, to foster a confident Steve McQueen Year 3 printed media carrying prompts and playful exploration of the artwork exhibition resource and invitations for ways of being in and surrounding ideas. In developing the gallery, sharing with peers and the Year 3 resource, the team worked

Tate Schools and Teachers Team

The learning presence, unequivocal given their role A key motivation for the Schools and in ‘making’ this work, in ensuring that Teachers team was our belief that Tate remains as open, flexible, agile, welcoming the Year 3 students - we and responsive as possible and willing welcomed 33,450 out the 76,146 to learn. Tate must remain changed. students featured in the artwork Tate was made different by the – to Tate Britain might have a students’ presence. As a new and transformative impact. It did. more inclusive institution, Tate needs All the experiences described here to remember and honour this. Tate fundamentally shifted Tate. The needs to be ‘super adaptable’ - more students’ visits were loud, lively, than just being welcoming but willing physical and did not follow set ways of to re-morph to be better and give being in the gallery. For that moment gallery space to hundreds of students. 6. L. Turvey, & A. Walton, ‘Audience, of their encounter, for each student The belief, underlying this, is if Artist, exploring the practice of learning it was their experience, it was art, it students are listened to, heard, and with art’, In Site of Conversation: On was Tate. We feel a responsibility to learned from - not only by us as a team learning with Art, Audiences and Artists the process of students transforming but by the whole institution - Tate will (London: Tate Publications, 2017), 11. Tate, through the challenge of their be better for all visitors and staff. n Reflections on the Year 3 Project 38

Christine Lai, James Broadley and Aoife O’Doherty

Young Londoners’ Perspectives on Steve McQueen Year 3

Christine Lai Aoife O’Doherty Tate Collective Producer A New Direction’s Christine is a British-born Chinese cu- Young Challenge Group rator/cultural producer. She began her Aoife is a South London based graph- training at 17 in the museum industry ic designer and producer driven by as a Tate Collective Producer which empathy, purpose, and people power. inspired her to take up degrees in His- Alongside her work as a designer, she tory of Art and Museum Studies. Her facilitates workshops and is currently practice is founded upon interrogating developing cyanotype print work- the processes within knowledge pro- shops focused on climate change. duction and exploring socio-cultural Aoife joined the Young Challenge histories within photography. Chris- Group in 2019 with an interest in tine has worked with a wide range of participatory design and inclusive organisations including Tate, Nation- decision making. As a creative teacher al Galleries of Scotland, Procreate and facilitator, she advocates for equal Project and curated exhibitions across creative access and use of design for the UK and The Netherlands. Recently, the public good. she curated Late at Tate Britain: From Tomorrow (Feb 2020) and currently Edited by works for Troy House Art Foundation Jack Redfern under international artist Yuan Gong. A New Direction Jack is Partnerships Officer at A New James Broadley Direction and coordinates the Young A New Direction’s Young Challenge Group, A New Direction’s Challenge Group youth consultancy initiative. He works James has been a member of A New with place-based partnerships across Direction’s Young Challenge Group London’s cultural education landscape for almost two years. James gradu- to support the development of its local ated from drama school in 2018 and creative and cultural ecologies. now works at Amnesty International. James co-founded and facilitates Make a Film in a Weekend, a course designed for people aged 16 - 25 to develop their artistic voice and build creative communities through visual story- telling. James is based in East London, loves to climb and is currently writing a play about Londoners’ connections with nature. 8 Reflections on the Year 3 Project 39

Young Londoners’ Perspectives on Steve McQueen Year 3

The reflections on the following pages are the thoughts of three young Londoners drawn from the Tate Collective Producers, a group of 15 to 25-year-olds who work with the galleries to curate youth-centred work, and A New Direction’s Young Challenge Group, a panel of young creatives who advise on the city’s cultural educational landscape. In their essay, the authors approach the Steve McQueen Year 3 exhibition through their own identities as ‘young Londoners’: tracing their personal journeys from primary school to maturity, they contrast the democratisation of the outdoor (billboards) and gallery exhibitions, examine whether the exhibition reflects the truth of their London, and ask whether Steve McQueen Year 3 ultimately succeeds as ‘a hopeful portrait of a generation to come’.

Christine Lai Tate Collective Producer

Responding to art is always a difficult sell another product I don’t need.” thing for me. I dislike that imposing The more I looked at it, the more I feeling that you’re supposed to be found myself remembering what it articulate, smart and profound with felt like to be that age; how my your response; that you have to ‘feel’ biggest problems were which friend I wondered what something about the art. With this in I had on which day, what the Vikings these children must mind, it almost seems counterintuitive wore, where my hymn book was. to be writing this essay on how it All these strange menial problems think when they see feels to be a young Londoner looking that now seem like nothing, but at themselves blown up at Steve McQueen Year 3. That’s why the time were definitely the most I think it’s really interesting how the difficult problems ever to be faced by to giant size on the public placing of this project – on a 7-year-old. I wondered what these platform’s billboards. busy roads, underground tunnels, children must think when they see pavements – works in removing themselves blown up to giant size Do they feel proud? that layer of pretence for me. on the platform’s billboards. Do they feel proud? Do they have the same I remember my first encounter with feeling we get as adults of whether this project: standing on the platform or not they look good in that camera at Angel, idly waiting for the train to angle? I forget when that begins come and catching sight of the merry to happen: becoming consciously band of Year 3 (Y3) students smiling critical of how you look in pictures. at me. My initial thought was: “Oh cool! What a nice gesture to see these From tube stations to Tate Britain. children plastered all over London, It’s one thing to be on a billboard, rather than another advert trying to quite another to feature in a gallery Reflections on the Year 3 Project 40

dedicated to representing ‘Britishness’ in art. I don’t remember caring about James Broadley galleries, the meaning of art, or being Young Challenge Group British at that age: in fact, I distinctly remember kicking up such a fuss when Walking into Steve McQueen Year 3 normality of school photographs my mother took me there to see John I was struck by the enormity of the since my nan’s post-war portrait did, Singer Sargent’s Carnation, Lily, Lily, project. Thousands of faces settled however, leave me questioning the Rose. When I see the same photograph into shimmering colours, and each notion that Steve McQueen Year 3 is from Angel station installed at Tate person had their own space to shine intrinsically a ‘hopeful portrait of a Britain, that imposing feeling returns. on the epic walls. Zooming in gave generation to come’. World events This time when I look at the piece as pink cushions, inspiring quotes, and that could test Londoners to the part of its whole entity, those personal walls with pictures of role models like core of our humanity lie ahead, with reflections on my time at school Mo Farah. My heart glowed seeing or without powerful exhibitions: seem to simmer away and a sense of a pupil and a Special Educational we should remain vigilant when voyeurism and duty to these children Needs and/or Disability (SEND) galleries attach positive notions now pervades. I suspect that this teacher as they both smiled, beaming to art, as it could leave audiences sense has been amplified by the Late with glee. For me, Steve McQueen content with the surface picture, Victorian grandeur of Tate Britain Year 3 is an exciting showcase of rather than provoke us to uncover itself, the kind of architecture that how far adults have come in the way the underlying problems. Hope is an reminds you of civics and morality; we hold space for young people. imaginative exercise and a cognitive reminds you that museums are a way function intrinsic to our survival During my visit, I saw a young for one to be educated. Which only as a species. Perhaps, therefore, it boy take a photo of his school and leaves me wondering, how much can is not the finished product of Year 3 excitedly share it with family. This we learn from this? And who should? that is the hopeful element: maybe interaction is a testament to the hope is found more in the logistical In an interview in Elephant with some immersive quality of the work ambition and execution of the project. children featured in the project, some and how it develops an authentic were rather dismayed at their connection with artist, subject, and To hope is to believe a solution will presence in the gallery. ‘Normal, audience, empowering all three be discovered. I stood in the gallery normal, normal,’ one of them recalled; simultaneously in the live moment. and considered the UK’s current another mentioned that ‘there were Seeing this got me thinking back to solutions and the problems now lots and lots and lots of other classes. my own school days, and I realised rising: nationalism, air pollution, I was just one out of a million. I was that it is the adults I respected who sea levels, and infection rates and really small, and no one would notice left positive impressions on me that looked at the 76,146 children and did me. They only look at it all together.’¹ have helped me the most in life so far: feel anxious. Yet, there is a paradigm I guess in-gallery it’s all about like after losing a school rugby match, shift occurring among younger strength in numbers; when they’re our coach would give the team an generations. They are empowered scattered around on the billboards uplifting speech. These interactions by the internet and a realisation of London, then we really get to see are the foundations of self-esteem that power structures may not these individuals as they are. And in a growing person. The Tate Year 3 necessarily be serving them: take to me, that’s what makes it really Project photographers’ workshops in the Fridays for Future climate strikes, special: to see the real personalities in schools when they took the photos for example, self-organised by youth these photographs, the ones with the demonstrates the restorative power of activists and led by teenagers like crooked smile, the unkempt hair, the being seen, accepted, and celebrated Greta Thunberg. A world movement wonky school tie. That’s how I think for the simple fact of being alive. For organised by children is a phenomenal McQueen gets us to care, by showing example, an image in a photograph 21st-century development, but this us that there are real children affected that caught my eye was a child dynamism could be in danger of by our choices and consequences. n standing behind their teacher proudly being trapped behind the glass of forming the ‘Wakanda Forever’ Tate’s photo frames unless genuine salute across their chest. The defiant avenues of communication are created expression on their face moved me: between current decision-makers and a reminder to never underestimate London’s future leaders. The events of the power of a good story told well. 2020 have shown that art will serve only as an escape unless systemic Steve McQueen Year 3 also got change is installed to ensure that me thinking about my own nan’s everyone can fit into the picture. n 1. L.Benson, ‘“Boring!” The Kids Reflect on Steve mantelpiece and the collection of McQueen’s Year 3 Project’, Elephant, 26 Feb 2020, school photos she has of herself, https://elephant.art/boring-the-kids-reflect-on- her children, and grandchildren: steve-mcqueens-year-3-project-tate-britain- each generation has been collated children-london-26022020, accessed 28 April 2021 to be celebrated. Reflecting on the Reflections on the Year 3 Project 41

Aoife O’Doherty Young Challenge Group

Creative institutions can be catalysts, who are different to me. Steve igniting imagination and cultivating McQueen Year 3 captures young knowledge. The exhibition Steve students at a powerful stage in their McQueen Year 3 documented future life where they are beginning ‘to London, opened new understandings understand more about their place in The exhibition urges of art, and engaged with people who a changing world and to think about us, the viewers, to had not been to Tate before. Often the future’. The exhibition urges us, it is proclaimed that art is for all, the viewers, to consider what we consider what we want but not everyone has access and want this generation to inherit and this generation to knowledge or feels welcome into what they could become: not the places in which art exists. There is possibilities of an individual but of inherit and what they a proven desire in the energy and a collective. could become: not the audiences behind exhibitions like We tend to think that young children Steve McQueen Year 3 that needs to possibilities of an have an innocent approach to life, full be matched with meaningful change of kindness and trust. They are friends individual but of from within institutions. Creative with whoever they want to be friends hubs must become more accessible a collective. with and at 7- or 8- years old are only and representative now. We need starting to have wider awareness of diversity in people and thought, from class, gender, race, privileges, and storytellers to board members, to social differences. Steve McQueen transform institutions into places Year 3 reflects this with the absence where people are comfortable to of labels for each photograph, which look at art, engage with art and aside from providing privacy, I think become artists themselves. creates positive uniformity. Seeing I was struck by the joy and animated the entirety of future London framed hope at the Steve McQueen Year 3 on the walls of Tate as a shared front exhibition, bringing to life the formal proposes and liberates possibilities. curated grids of photographs. Those There is no need for explanations and visiting the exhibition were perhaps no room for assumptions about why not ‘visitors’ in the expected sense, a school class is a certain way: this but could be described as active is simply London. Assumptions keep engagers, participants, learners or many from being a voice in this world, listeners: the exhibition was not and this exhibition extends the ability just on the walls, it was also about for all to be recognised and seen. the surrounding space that held As the young children of The Tate a constant buzz. Walking around, Year 3 Project grow up and continue to I heard stories being exchanged, learn, I hope creative tools and spaces laughs, shouts and memories recalled. can help them recognise the power Steve McQueen Year 3 created a lasting they hold to be storytellers. Art helps sense of belonging, both belonging in us to make sense of the world we live in the space and to the city. and now, more than ever, this creativity Going to school in London had a needs to be activated, not squeezed out grounding positive impact on my of the education system. Art education life. I took diversity completely for develops self-expression and cultivates granted. Sitting in classes with new ways of thinking. It enriches our people from different backgrounds understanding of who we are and and places across London wasn’t teaches us how to solve problems. something I contemplated or This needs to be cherished in a climate even valued at the time, but as I of increasing global challenges. continue navigating life, I can see The display of Steve McQueen Year 3 that the embedded diversity from presents eager-eyed young children my education is a reflection of the who could be future creative thinkers, everyday. I am a more considerate leaders, and makers. n and aware person from being surrounded by friends and peers Reflections on the Year 3 Project 42

David Parker with Anna Cutler, James Lingwood and Steve Moffitt

Why Did We Do This, and What Did We Learn? Reflections From Lead Partners

David Parker James Lingwood David is a freelance researcher and Artangel evaluator with an interest in arts and James is Co-director of Artangel. creativity programmes for young peo- Artangel commissions, produces and ple. Recent evaluations have focused presents new projects by contempo- on work for the British Council, Arts rary artists, writers, musicians, thea- Council England and Sorrell Founda- tre-makers, and film-makers in a wide tion. Formerly, he was Director of Re- range of different sites throughout the search for Creative and Cultural Skills, UK and across the world. As a curator Creative Partnerships and the British and writer, Lingwood has realised Film Institute. numerous exhibitions in galleries and museums across the world over the Anna Cutler past three decades. Director of Learning and latterly Director of Learning & Research Steve Moffitt at Tate (2010 - 2021) A New Direction With 30 years’ experience working in Steve is CEO at A New Direction. He education and cultural settings at a is responsible for the strategic leader- local, national, and international level, ship, vision and financial viability of Anna’s central purpose throughout the organisation. He is passionately her career has been to explore and committed to developing innovative improve educational interventions in creative change programmes for a range of cultural and cross-discipli- young Londoners, with over 38 years’ nary arts environments. In September experience of work in the arts, creative 2016 she initiated Tate Exchange, a educational and community settings. civic space aimed at building dialogue around art, society, and the urgent and complex issues9 facing us today. Reflections on the Year 3 Project 43

Why Did We Do This, and What Did We Learn? Reflections From Lead Partners

The Tate Year 3 Project, partly because it was a large-scale project and partly due to the nature of the artwork being created, was reliant on effective partnership working. Particularly key were the interactions between Tate, Artangel and A New Direction, each collaborating with the other to bring Steve McQueen’s vision to fruition.

In this essay key figures from each organisation, Why do the Tate Year 3 Project? Anna Cutler (former Director of Learning and For many years the moral imperative has been clear. The United Kingdom is a signatory to the 1989 United Nations Research, Tate), James Lingwood (Co-Director, Convention on the Rights of the Child, which states in Artangel) and Steve Moffit (CEO, A New Direction) Article 31 that every child ‘has the right... to participate look back on their motivations to make Year 3 freely in cultural life and the arts’.¹ Connections with museum and gallery venues should therefore be a normal, happen, the reflections they have had on the familiar, and everyday experience for all young people. process over the months since the exhibition Ideas for large scale projects are an obvious way to reach came to a close, and key learning they are likely significant numbers of young people and, alongside other to carry to future projects and which they feel the initiatives, may be an important component in building sector at large may also find useful to consider. cultural capital. It is no surprise then that ideas to find a vehicle to work with many young people had circulated for some time, and versions of Year 3 as a concept stretch back to the pre-Olympic period (2010-12), when in London there David Parker with Anna Cutler, James Lingwood was a good deal of interest in place-based art projects, and Steve Moffitt designed to showcase the creativity and potential of the capital’s youth within the context of Olympic ideals. James Lingwood explains: “ Steve McQueen first shared the idea of Year 3 with me in 2010. I was clear at the time that Artangel couldn’t take a lead role but agreed to write up a brief proposal to share with Ruth Mackenzie who was heading up the programme for the Cultural Olympiad. The Cultural Olympiad didn’t pick up on the idea, and we didn’t push very hard. Year 3 presented logistical and financial challenges way beyond what Artangel could take on. However, the idea stayed with me, and Steve and I would occasionally talk about it.” While Year 3 did not emerge at that time, once it did, the conversations between A New Direction, Artangel 1. UNICEF, ‘Convention on the Rights of the Child’, UNICEF, What we and Tate focused on working at scale and provoked an do, What is the UN Convention on Child Rights? www.unicef.org.uk/ ambition to find the right opportunity to work in a pan- what-we-do/un-convention-child-rights/, accessed 27 May 2021 London way. Reflections on the Year 3 Project 44

Why did the ambition to work in This meant planning discussions were key. this way persist? The vision for the work was clear; the idea First, and perhaps as a legacy of the 2012 to communicate with schools had a surface Olympics and Paralympics, there was a simplicity but conceptual depth, and this renewed appreciation for the power and combination of factors boosted the project’s effect of working at scale, and how such credibility. James Lingwood explains: work might be an important affirmative “ Any project with this scale of ambition, statement for the young people of and especially one involving such large- London. Particularly in a period which scale participation, needs a micro- had seen the effects of austerity and the start of many future political and climate of credibility to be built around economic challenges of Brexit hit their it. All the key players in Year 3 really generation with disproportionate force. believed in the importance of the idea, Steve Moffitt explained the motivation and its transformative potential for the from A New Direction’s perspective: participating schools and school children but also for the collaborating cultural “ I was excited about the focus on London and organisation. Everyone was clear it was its children. I liked the idea. It was simple only worth doing if they pulled out all bold and ambitious. It resonated with our the stops to get as many school children values and our sense of purpose. The notion as possible involved not only in getting of the city seeing its community of 7- and the class photo taken, but also visiting 8-year-olds in a prestigious gallery and the exhibition at Tate Britain.” visible on over 600 billboards felt brave. The project had an irresistibly simple concept The fact that the project was multi-faceted of capturing a moment in the lives of the Y3 meant that there were a number of ways children of the city through a Year 3 class schools could engage, and also multiple photograph with the assumption that a) depths they could explore as part of their it was possible logistically and b) schools engagement. The concept of the class would be able and want to participate.” photograph was instantly relatable, but also lent itself to many sorts of application In addition, and as is often the case with and interpretation; it was a rich stimulus conceptually rich artworks, after the for learning. While the work was managed cultural upheaval in the US throughout by cultural sector partners, there was no 2020, Year 3 took on further significance as set formula every school had to follow a sea of multi-cultural young faces stared completely in order to participate. There back at a city which was struggling to find was a base level of engagement, common- its own moral response to the death of to-all, but aside from that, a multiplicity George Floyd, a point noted by Anna Cutler: of choices that schools were encouraged “ Given the summer of 2020 following the to make for themselves. Steve Moffit death of George Floyd and events led explains why this was important: in response by the Black Lives Matter “ Year 3 was unusual. It was an art piece and movement, the project developed an a learning project. As a learning project even more significant place in people’s the ask of schools was manageable and minds relative to race and the ‘culture scaleable. The minimum engagement was war’. I think this is very complex territory to participate in an hour-long workshop that will need (and will have) far more where a Y3 class would be photographed to be said as the cultural landscape and after a series of games and introductory cultural climate changes. It’s clear that exercises. How the school could then use context matters. Had the exhibition this starting point was up to them. A set taken place in 2012 the interpretations of learning resources and tools could be would have been different.” utilised to scaffold and develop wider and What did we learn? deeper learning. The beauty of the project Building a clear sense of collective creative handed the leadership of the learning over endeavour everyone could buy into was to the schools. I would like to see more vital. Essential ingredients to that included national large-scale institutions working Steve McQueen’s status as a Turner Prize in this way. Offering starting points for and Oscar winning artist, but also the partnership – providing a catalyst for expertise of Tate, A New Direction and work to be generated and trusting schools Artangel which could be fused in ways that to do what they do best, teaching their played equally to the strengths of each. children and preparing them for life.” Reflections on the Year 3 Project 45

There was something deeply integrated To each participant, Year 3 felt personal. about this work, too, particularly when it It also involved a community of came to the learning component. Often, communities, each Y3 class being its with headline exhibitions from high own small community. It worked on profile artists there is a tendency for both an immediate, local level, and on a learning elements to be a bolt-on. With more general, London-wide level.” Year 3 learning was intrinsic to the work What will A New Direction, Artangel and and this instantly boosted the value and Tate do differently as a result of Year 3? visibility on the schools side, encouraging Big lessons were learned about what is the high levels of take-up and the value possible around equity, agency and working they took away from participating. Anna at scale, and the importance of framing Cutler noted this from Tate’s perspective: concepts in ways that speak powerfully and “ The importance of all aspects being of directly to the communities you hope to value and part of the whole. Often learning engage. James Lingwood elaborates on this: programmes are partial to an idea, here “ It is certainly feeding into our thinking about they were fully connected and spoke across equity and inclusion – in the choices we all parts. This doesn’t happen as often make as an organisation, the way we allocate as one may wish for. It created a sense of resources to projects, the work we are doing value and shared endeavour that pushed to diversify our audiences. It has reinforced people to go further and do better.” our determination to think through our Working with children at such scale and projects from the perspective – and the lived taking on board the feedback from the experience – of different communities. many teachers and headteachers involved It also made Artangel determined to push pointing to important lessons about what ahead with plans to realise Oscar Murillo’s to aim for with these projects with regard Frequencies, another hugely ambitious to balancing outcomes. Year 3 managed project based on a collaboration with to be both monumental – the Duveen children and young people in schools. Plans Galleries, the Billboards – and highly to present an exhibition in a ‘found’ space personal – the individual faces and peer in Peckham were put on hold at the onset group stories behind each photograph. of the pandemic in April 2020. We then James Lingwood reflected on this: decided that it would be more meaningful “ The excitement of being involved in and more energising to present the project in something so big, something that was a a school environment, in collaboration with national event, a massive social media students in the school. A vast installation of happening, but which always remained Frequencies will be presented in the Sports theirs. The thrill of seeing themselves taking Hall at Cardinal Pole School, Hackney over Tate Britain, of feeling the place had over the 2021 summer holidays.” become theirs. The opportunity to think Anna Cutler reflected that for Tate there about their own world (based on family, faith, were important lessons about what neighbourhood, school etc.) in relation to a could be achieved when the learning much bigger world, and to see themselves element of a work was given the same alongside so many others. Perhaps to raise parity as curatorial considerations: consciousness about the extraordinary diversity of London schoolchildren, as well “ New ways of working with our curatorial as underlying issues of class, faith and colleagues were made possible. Clarrie ability. Overall, it seems to have been a very Wallis as the lead curator should be affirmative experience for everyone involved. named as a key person in this as she Everyone was valued, no-one felt used. went several extra miles to ensure that everything was consistent and well thought The sheer scale and ambition of Year 3 through for Steve, and the exhibition at exercised a powerful magnetic pull on a Tate, as well as for the children. huge community of participants – children, teachers, parents, carers; at least 200,000 The role of the artist and their involvement individuals, probably more. Everyone was can be significant to a learning programme if treated equally; everyone knew this ethos they have interest and investment themselves. underpinned the entire project. In a society Steve was very generous with his time and distorted by privilege and discrimination, the long line of teachers wanting to speak this commitment to equality was welcomed with him at the teachers’ events, and their by teachers, parents, and carers. feelings of being represented and championed Reflections on the Year 3 Project 46

by him, was moving and felt important.” The key take-aways For A New Direction, whose input had been so crucial in engaging schools and making Steve, James and Anna’s reflections point to their own workshops a plausible undertaking for the interest in reflecting on their practice and the strategies teachers taking part, Steve Moffitt thinks their respective organisations pursue. When considered that their future work must not only take side-by-side what do their thoughts tell us, overall, to better account of schools’ own capacities and start points, and to trust their sense of their keep in mind about future work? own start points, but also embrace broader The clarity, quality and scale of the idea matters horizons Year 3 proved it was possible to work Schools are looking for an engaging idea, but a manageable across. That included not being put off by the one, so ensure that there is purpose and value for them at the most challenging logistical/legal elements. centre of the work, even when the project stretches beyond “ As an organisation we are less fearful of their comfort zones. At the same time, think big. Embrace the scale. We have grown bolder and clearer concept of scale, ambition and fearlessness and do not be afraid around our vision and being part of making of unknowns. Trust a great idea and believe in its potential. Year 3 happen has affirmed our commitment Embrace challenge and the ideas of others to inclusion and equality. We are already in Partnerships that are most effective are not guaranteed to be discussion with several organisations around punctuated by milestone moments of unalloyed consensus – how to best support them to work at scale. expect disagreement and work through challenges by hearing We are also clearer about our methodology and respecting one another’s views. and approach to working in partnership. Take risk assessment seriously but do not be overawed by it At the launch of the project the question many Working with young people in such a way that their of the journalists in the room kept coming back participation is also a form of representation means that to was safeguarding. Although a huge issue safeguarding becomes hugely important with expert input and a massive challenge for the cultural sector from organisations like the NSPCC invaluable. Risks of and for schools, safeguarding is part of the deal identifying young people are logistically and legally complex of working with children. It was a significant and for Year 3 were significant but not insuperable hurdles. part of the project and at times it was scary – but with good advice, training, a coherent Identity and community are vital strategy, and clear support systems in place it is Year 3 worked because it was about the 7- and 8-year-olds of possible to create a safe and secure environment London today, but it carried within it, teachers’ and parents’ to make projects like this happen.” own memories of their schooling; it was an authentically connective concept that drew all participants in, but placed children right at the centre. Equality is important; participants were co-creators of Year 3. Visibility is important; the artwork was revelatory; a re-evaluation of who we are. Agency is important; participants were in control of their own journeys as part of the project. The commitment and visibility of the artist are crucial The role of the artist in Year 3 was essential. Steve McQueen’s voice and energy were present in all aspects of the project. He was visible, and the children, staff and parents had an extraordinary connection with him. His ambition and aspiration for the piece was inspiring and energising to all involved. Trust schools and teachers to locate themselves within large-scale work Year 3 framed and conceptualised an idea; it provided stepping on points for schools in the form of workshops and follow-up resources, but it did not over prescribe, and a school’s own agency was therefore privileged. As a result, schools’ and children’s enjoyment as well as the benefits they felt, were more profound. Schools valued being invited to collaborate rather than be told what to do. n www.anewdirection.org.uk/year-3-reflections

A New Direction’s Year 3 team: A New Direction is an award-winning Steve Moffitt, Rebecca Branch, Naranee Ruthra-Rajan, Marina non-profit organisation working to Lewis-King, Steve Woodward enhance the capacity and agency of and Jim Beck. children and young people in London to own their creativity, shape culture, and achieve their creative potential.

We do this by working with a diverse range of partners, making connections, sharing practice, influencing change, improving the ecology that surrounds children and young people, and by providing real and transformative opportunities - from childhood, through school years and into employment.

www.anewdirection.org.uk @A_New_Direction

Image: Steve McQueen Year 3 ©Tate