Contemporary Art Space Project

In partnership with the RSA Academies

The Contemporary Art Space Project is a two-year programme of art-making and community engagement. The project reflects the RSA Academies‘ (Royal Society of the Arts Academies) Commitment to Arts, Culture and Creativity and Iniva’s ambition to further develop their learning and education strand nationally.

At a point in time in which study of arts and creative subjects are
progressively marginalised from curricula, we would like to explore
whether this project would prove to be an accessible, sustainable
model to increase whole-school engagement in the arts and cultural
learning.

This project will establish three outdoor contemporary art spaces in three RSA schools in the West Midlands through a collaborative process with pupils and their teachers. The schools involved are:
– Abbeywood First School (Reception – Year 4) in Redditch
– Arrow Vale RSA Academy (Year 9-13) in Redditch
– Holyhead School (Year 7-13) in Handsworth, Birmingham

The project is designed to develop young people’s sense of identity and explore what it means to be human through co-commissioning
new artworks in response to social issues they identify as being important. The artworks will help schools develop and articulate their collective sense of mission and purpose and strengthen schools’ links with their communities.

We aim to explore how this project might prove to be an accessible, sustainable model that influences the practice of other schools and arts organisations to increase whole school engagement in arts and culture.

Project Delivery

A steering group of pupils from each school will work with an appointed artist to explore the theme of ‘Oracy’. The artist will work with an art therapist to kick start a series of three workshops that will develop artistic output, critical thinking and explore the relationship between contemporary art and emotional learning with the steering group (as explored through Iniva Creative Learning’s ArtLab programme).

Outcomes of the workshops will feed into a final artwork to be installed on school premises from January 2020. An engagement programme will be delivered, encompassing the school community and wider public.

We are pleased to announce our appointed artists for CAS Year 1:

Rudy Loewe

Nilupa Yasmin

Laurie Ramsell

Our appointed curator Josephine Reichert will work closely with the artist, schools and project team over the two year project.