ST JOHN'S CATHOLIC COMPREHENSIVE SCHOOL
International Artist: Rachel Whiteread
Creative Practitioner: Abigail Hunt
Exploring ideas of negative space as apparent in Rachel Whiteread's work, 16 mixed year group students from St John's School have been playing with ideas of scale, placement and the concept of moving past a sculpture and its changing viewpoints.
Through a series of exciting practical workshops the group has been exploring the relationship between landmarks within their school environment, measuring everything from their desk to the school building itself and releasing helium balloons to heights of 50 metres to gain a deeper understanding of the sheer scale of the landmark commission.
Through paper manipulation, sculptural cutwork and photograms, the students each developed a set of images to represent the negative gaps of the 5 proposals - reflecting the fact that the Ebbsfleet site is empty and is itself currently a negative space. Using these shapes as a means to explore distance and perspective, they used visual manipulation and photographic techniques to place them within the site itself.
These negative shapes then became the basis for the placement of their own site specific artworks within the school; a series of high-finish painted stylised 'road signs' using their own images in the place of text. These works referenced both the transport links to and from Ebbsfleet, the proposals themselves and the concept of marking a site. They also created an unexpected presence within the school inviting a response from the other students and teachers.
The students raised to the challenge of thinking differently, both about looking at and making art. This resulted in a really strong sense of ownership over the Landmark Link Project and, equally, a pride around their own work.
