Project summary
In the Summer of 2025, Thetford LCEP will celebrate the rich diversity of Thetford’s community through a pop up art gallery in the centre of town. The gallery will showcase work inspired by Angélica Dass’s Humanae project which features photography celebrating the diverse beauty of human skin.
Participating schools and community groups will have an opportunity to respond to Dass’s work through projects coo-constructed with their pupils. The LCEP will also commission a poet to work with young people from across the town to explore the language around skin colour.
Ahead of the project, staff will receive CPD on issues surrounding identity and skin colour to support them in their work. There will be a second training session after the project for teachers to share how their work went, and to reflect on and refine best practice.
Funding sources and costing
Arts Lead from Drake to deliver CPD to schools
Art materials for schools
Printing of promotional and support materials
Poet to work with groups of children - £325 a day dependent on numbers of participating settings
Diversity and Identity Training
Display boards for the gallery
Project networks and services provided
LCEP Board Member(s) leading this project: Louise McLeod
Arts Lead at Drake Primary School provide CPD for schools and support resources.
Radio Lead at Drake Primary School to support school to create audio tracks and podcasts to accompany projects.
BAMEed to provide training on language around skin colour and identity.
Lewis Buxton, poet, to deliver poetry workshops with groups of children.
Town Council to source a venue for the gallery.
Local schools and community groups
Outcomes
By depicting people from all over the world against a background that matches their skin tone, Angélica Dass shows us how wonderfully colourful humans really are, questioning the concept of race and the limited categories we use to describe each other. These ideas are simply too small for a world that contains so many beautiful colours and people. Angelica asks us to consider how we see ourselves and others, through both similarities and differences and encourages looking, questioning and thinking bigger - inviting us to think about race, and our common humanity, in a new way.
This arts project will scaffold these important conversations around race and identity.
Pupils will
explore and deepen their understanding of their own identity and that of the people around them.
see themselves fully represented.
be part of a shared experience with their peers.
see their work valued and celebrated in their town.
have a voice in how the project develops.
School staff will
share and gain from good practice.
deepen their knowledge and understanding of diversity.
collaborate with colleagues from across the town building a diverse learning community and develop positive and rewarding relationships.
Community members will
have a raised awareness of the diversity of our town.
have an opportunity to interact with the arts in their own town centre.
have a shared experience with other members of the community.