Press Information
In April 2006 Alice Woodhouse undertook a pilot project with students from Dagenham Park Community School, which facilitated a dialogue between students and five practicing artists. The students worked together within year groups to put forward a number of questions, which they felt would broaden their knowledge of contemporary art. This pilot scheme aimed to tackle the issue of students’ confidence in their own ability and their understanding of how art is relative to their lives beyond the classroom.
The students drew up a number of questions which were then narrowed down to one question per year group. The panel of artists received seven questions to answer every two months.
Both students and staff at Dagenham Park Community School are proud of recently achieving a specialist school status due to their involvement in the arts in lesson-time and after school activities. The school has 42% ethic minorities, and 44 languages are spoken. There are also a large number of children with learning difficulties and a range of disabilities. The children participated with great enthusiasm and embraced ‘real’ issues through classroom discussion.
The primary aim for the project was to build on pupils self esteem by validating the relevance of their questions with the replies of established artists.
The results of the project were gathered in the form of the students’ questions and the response of each artist. There were also worksheets designed to help the students consider the responses received from the artists.
The participating artists were Jordan Baseman, Anne Bean, Nat Mellors, Gary Stevens and Alison Turnbull.

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Questions that went forward to the artists:
How old were you when you started creating art? What at this age? Why art?
I always had an interest in art. I spent all my time drawing when I was at school, something I no longer do at all. I went to art school when I was 18 and it was there that I thought about making art seriously, although I did not consider myself to be an artist until very much later. – Gary Stevens

Does your weather change your moods if so are the pictures more aggressive or subtle?
My work often involves performance or events and is often outdoors so weather is a very central part of how it is perceived and how I feel about it. This is slightly different to the sense in which you have asked this question but nevertheless has a parallel outcome.
For instance: I did a performance recently in Zambia, where I grew up, and where the starry night skies had filled many contemplative times in my childhood. I organised a night event in which I asked many local participants each to hold a helium balloon with a giant (2 minute burning time) sparkler attached. I placed the people on the ground in the arrangement of the star constellations in the sky that night. I asked them to light the sparklers and release the balloons into the sky together. It was the rainy season where great storms could sweep over so I realised the piece could either be a vibrant swirling piece of dancing sparkler 'stars' between dark blustery clouds or, if it was a still evening, a gentle, calm and meditative piece. It was the latter and it felt like our stars were reaching out to the stars of the cosmos.
Another performance I was doing in Lisbon with a group called the Bow Gamelan Ensemble which used large sculptural forms to make sounds in a great variety of ways. Suddenly an electric storm struck and as our 'instruments' were mostly metallic we had great forks of lightening all around us and such huge amounts of rain fell that the ground became a pond reflecting our whole set-up. We were both frightened stiff and completely awe-inspired by the astonishing beauty. There are many more of these complete changes of mood depending on weather. – Anne Bean

What do you use for inspiration and have you had critism (for this)?
All sorts of different things inspire me. I read a lot and I think fiction in particular provides a wonderful source of images, as when you read you are constantly making pictures in your head. Even though my work can appear quite abstract, the colours in my paintings - and how they are applied - usually come from real things and experiences in the everyday world. These could range from the red and black of a Greek vase I saw in the British Museum to imagining the dirty white of a nurse's uniform in the First World War. I also travel quite a lot and am very inspired by that - and the memory of the places I've visited once I get back to my studio. One time when I was criticised for this was when I made work based on a visit to Japan - although most people responded positively to it, one critic said that my approach was too rigidly Western. – Alison Turnbull

Do you have to look at other artist's paintings to be able to improve your paintings?
I am not a painter, although I look at paintings a lot. I work mainly in what is called, Performance or Live Art. I have also made some video installations. I think of myself as a kind of sculptor, who works with people. I think it is essential that artists look at each other's work. Not to copy, but to see how they do things. We all learn from each other. I think of it as a kind of conversation between people through the different things that they make. – Gary Stevens

We are doing art work about abstracting text, do you think this is an important subject and why?
I think that language is the most important mode of communication but that there are lots of problems and limits to it - I suppose it depends what you are doing with the text and why.. – Nat Mellors

Do you annotate your work? If not who does?
I always provide some kind of written description or caption for the work. Sometimes this does get used and sometimes it gets re-written. If my work is being reviewed then I have nothing to do with that writing. Every situation is different, so all the writing is different for each situation: press release, artist statements, captions, etc. If i haven't done all of the writing then it is usually the gallery and/or curator that does some of it. In the end i think it is often up to the artist to position their work and using words is often another way to do this. – Jordan Baseman

How does you art work inspire your audience?
When you are working away on your own most of the time, it can seem quite miraculous that there is an audience for what you do, let alone an audience who will actually be inspired by it!
I think that my job, if you like, is to make the work as clearly and precisely as I can and then to let go of it. Once it is out in the world I can't control it any more and different people will bring different readings and responses to it, all of which are valid. – Alison Turnbull

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