Project summary

Name: A Rubbish Art Exhibition

Drake staff procured a space within Thetford that was then turned into a Rubbish Art Gallery. We collected rubbish from the rivers in Thetford and used this as inspiration to make paintings. The paintings were then displayed for our children, families and members of the public to see. The children spent time with Willow Phoenix to create large willow fish filled with rubbish from the rivers in Thetford.

LCEP Board Member(s) leading this project: Louise McLeod

Networks involved: Brecks Fen River and Edge Landscape Scheme (BFER), Willow Phoenix, Thetford Town Council, Kirkby Diamond – Property Management, Thetford Rivers Group

Funding sources and costings

Willow Phoenix – Family sculpture workshops - £1360.00

Project networks and services provided

Thetford Town Council

Supported in the acquisition of the space for the Art Gallery

Kirkby Diamond Property Management

Drake staff liaised with Kirkby Diamond to procure a space suitable to present our art and to welcome families and the local community.

Willow Phoenix

Supplied the willow needed to create the willow sculptures and they also spent a day in our art gallery space working alongside the children to build the sculptures.

Thetford Rivers Group

The Thetford Rivers group loaned us some extraordinary pieces of art created by their founder.

Outcomes

The children at Drake created paintings using a variety of materials and these paintings were then displayed within the art gallery.

Advertisements were made to parents and our local community to come and visit our gallery and to reflect on the impact the rubbish is having within our rivers.

Children spent 2 days visiting the gallery where they were able to contribute to the sculptures, watch a video of a riverside walk and look at artwork loaned to the gallery from the Thetford Rivers Group.

The gallery then opened to the local community, lots of visitors from the local community came and remarked on how impactful the artwork was and how it made them think of their local community.

Outcomes

Children

• Able to see their art work in a public place, one of our children stated, “It now feels real, I feel like my art means something”.

• Children worked on their communication skills as some of them gave tours of the gallery to the local community.

• Children learnt new art techniques to create their multi-media paintings.

• The children’s local knowledge was expanded as they completed lots of research to be able to talk about the purpose of this project to others.

Community

• Our local community could see that their local children cared about the environmental impact littering has within the community.

• The community were welcomed into our art gallery to talk to us and learn more about how we completed this project within school.

• Some parts of the local rivers had been cleaned by Drake to enable us to complete this project meaning the local area became cleaner