By Jon Nicholls, Thomas Tallis School

This post is an attempt to document the impact of Tate's Summer School 2016 on my practice this year so far. I've written about the experience of attending the 5 days of workshops in a previous post. It's difficult to disentangle the various influences that shape your teaching - discussions with colleagues, visiting exhibitions, reading articles, students' responses and misconceptions, talks and workshops - but I feel there are several strands that can be unravelled that relate directly to Summer School and have helped shape my lessons over the last 8 weeks or so. 

The classroom as studio/laboratory
One of the challenges I've faced since September is teaching a Year 13 photography class in an art room (rather than our specialist photography room) with limited access to ICT. Inspired by Anna and Alex's inventive use of a range of materials, processes (and spaces) during the Summer School, this constraint has encouraged me to attempt a wider range of experiments, perhaps more closely linked to contemporary art practice than a traditional photography course. Thinking about the limitations of this space (no studio lights, darkroom or easy access to laptops/the Internet, printing etc.) has prompted a more inventive approach which has, in turn, influenced the activities I have offered to other groups back in the photography room.

​During the latter part of the summer holidays I printed about 300 of my own photographs (quite cheaply using Photobox) for the students to use in the early September experiments. The emphasis has been on looking, sorting, collaborating, discussing, selecting, sequencing, describing, displaying and documenting. These skills, I hoped, would all help them in the ongoing development and refinement of their Personal Investigations. I was also keen to explore another provocation from Summer School about the relationship between still and moving images. Here are some of the documentary images and videos from these early experiments, directly influenced by similar Summer School activities:

The students were asked to work in groups, selecting only 5 images and placing them in a sequence. These were then stuck to the classroom wall in a single line arranged edge to edge. Photographs were taken of the join between each pair of images and a camera on a wheel mounted tripod was used to film various tracking shots. One group decided to experiment with adding additional circular apertures cut from postcards. One of the tracking shots featured additional images added to the original selection, inspired by one of Anna's films. We also explored the relationship between photographs and verbal descriptions of their formal elements, creating a slideshow of captions minus the original photographs.

Summer School had raised the following questions for me:

• How can I encourage more purposeful collaboration?
• How can we all begin making much sooner and immerse ourselves in a dialogue with materials, not just photographic?
• How might we use the products of these preliminary making sessions in the next phase of our activities?

These experiments with the selection, sequencing and display of found photographs certainly put the emphasis on experimentation with materials. Together with a further set of prompts (again inspired by Anna and Alex's instructions), space was created in the classroom/studio for playful investigation designed to deliberately undermine the authority of the single photographic image. 

Our guiding Threshold Concepts were #5 and #6 (with the support of #4 and #7). Beneath the messing about was a more serious proposal - photographs are technological and cultural constructs, requiring critical intelligence on the part of the maker and viewer. ​

The colour photocopier proved to be a really helpful tool for undermining the single image (although several colleagues waiting behind us in the queue might not have been so sympathetic):

The use of old paper enabled us to discuss aspects of TC#10. Unexpected patterns, caused by years of light leaking onto the surface of the paper, reminded us of the materiality of the photographic image perhaps best exemplified in the practice of artists like Alison Rossiter.

Year 11 photographers have also been experimenting with a range of strategies inspired by Summer School, producing some exciting outcomes. The circle cutters have certainly been popular and students have enjoyed playing with openings/obstructions, inside/outside, text/image, digital/analogue etc:

Performing for (and with) the Camera
A central feature of our Summer School experience was the notion of performance. We took various objects out into the galleries, at one point making a spectacle of ourselves. I really enjoyed the process of creating cardboard apertures and the collaborative performance in the Tanks. I wondered in my previous Summer School post "whether we could make interesting use of break and lunchtimes to share work with the wider school community and use the element of surprise." Consequently, we have attempted our own (ongoing) series of performances in school, beginning with a reprise of 'Apertures' featuring Year 13 photographers:

I felt particularly sorry for the group who ended up performing in the pouring rain! I've encouraged the Year 13 students to explore the relationship between photography and performance, referring to specific examples and the catalogues of Tate's fantastic 'Performing for the Camera' and 'Conceptual Art in Britain 1964-1979' exhibitions. We've discussed the various roles a photographer can perform (pun intended):

• documenting someone else's performance (e.g. Shunk and Kender's practice)
• performing for the camera (e.g. the self-portrait)
• performing with the camera (e.g. John Baldessari)

We've attempted a couple of collaborative performances to test these notions. For example, we made a pinhole (binhole?) camera from a large, black waste bin in order to create class portraits:

We have made out of date photographic paper aeroplanes, flown them in public and developed the resulting 'aerographs':

We have explored the One Minute Sculptures of Erwin Wurm:

We've had some fun (a worthy end in itself) but I think the students have found these experiments a bit bewildering. It will be interesting to see what emerges later on this year. Hopefully, they will have become slightly more conscious of the performative role all photographers play when they are operating a camera (especially in public) and the nature of the relationship between photographer and human subject. A few of early video sketches, exploring time and motion, are encouraging:

We have some other performances planned across the visual, media and performing arts. Year 9 students helped to curate an event for The Big Draw, an activity from which was repeated with staff in Wednesday morning briefing. Other events include the operation of a drawing machine, created by our art technician, and numerous impromptu music, dance and drama performances that will pop up unannounced throughout the year in a series of unlikely places. Our aim is to generate a sense of surprise and delight.
​
​Working alongside an artist
This aspect of the Summer School is obviously the most fundamental and the hardest to replicate back at school.

Her visit was wonderfully inspiring, combing a short talk about her practice, some links to other artists working in unusual ways with found imagery and a practical workshop involving the cutting, reassembling and projecting of vintage transparencies. Here are some of the Year 11 responses:

I've not seen this particular class become quite so absorbed in the process of making photographic images as they did in Dafna's workshop. The excitement of moving from working with a scalpel on a tiny scale over a light box to seeing the images projected on the end wall of the classroom reminded me of the screening of our 16mm film during the Summer School - a strange mixture of surprise, wonder, pride and appreciation. Had I not experienced the tremendous benefit of working alongside artists myself at Summer School, I'm not sure I would have been as determined to get an artist into school to work with my students. Now that it's happened, I'm even more committed to making this a more regular occurrence!

I have by no means exhausted the ideas and opportunities generated during Tate Summer School. I'm still keen to make a rotating table and a makeshift track for video experiments. I'd love to work with Super 8 or 16mm film. I'm pleased to have begun the process of transferring ideas into my school context and excited about the way my own practice has expanded. I'm looking forward to seeing how these experiments impact on the students' work over the coming months.

Now, time to give some more thought to the PhotoPedagogy Tate Exchange Associate project...

By Jon Nicholls, Thomas Tallis School

It might seem like an odd decision for a teacher to spend the first week of a summer holiday going back to school but the lure of Tate's Summer School proved too much for me to resist (more on resistance later). There were several inducements. I was offered a bursary. I had worked with one of the artists before, Anna Lucas, whose practice I admired. The blurb suggested an engagement with lens and light based media: "What happens when a photograph meets a sculpture or when painting looks at video?" The Summer School would be situated in the Tate Exchange space on Level 5 of the new Switch House at Tate Modern. I had a sense of what the experience might be like, what it might offer for a tired teacher, having worked alongside members of the Learning team exploring the affordances of a previous Summer School. It seemed like this was the year when I could see it all in extreme close-up.

Rather than give you a scene by scene account of each day (this is already available on Pat Thomson's blog for those interested), I'm going to attempt to identify those things that I plan to take away and use in my photography teaching next year. Here goes:

Beginnings (or Wake and Shake)​
Starters aren't a new idea for educators but Anna and Alex had designed a series of activities they referred to as 'Wake and Shake' that stimulated a number of different opportunities for learning.

• We were required to collaborate in a structured way (time, resources, 'rules') leading to the production of an artefact
• We were quickly immersed in artistic strategies (describing, sorting, arranging, deciding etc.) with very little preliminary explanation or justification
• Experimental and playful making and performance activities were foregrounded - the talking came later in the day
• There appeared to be a strong emphasis on process over product. 'Rules' were provided but quickly tested and broken. Contingencies were welcomed.
• The activities didn't often have a clear end point but bled into the next phase of the day's activities.

I don't always use starter activities in my lessons, sometimes because I only see the class for a single hour and the time is too precious. However, 'Wake and Shake' has slightly re-framed how I might think about the beginnings of lessons or units of work. 

• How can I encourage more purposeful collaboration?
• How can we all begin making much sooner and immerse ourselves in a dialogue with materials, not just photographic?
• How might we use the products of these preliminary making sessions in the next phase of our activities?

There is much still to ponder here but I'm hopeful that beginnings might look and feel a bit different come September.

Looking, Talking & Drawing
Throughout the week, a range of drawing activities were used in parallel with looking and talking. Anna took us to see the Joan Jonas projection 'Songdelay' from 1973 where we created Blind Movie Drawings using carbon paper and black card. Each day we had a discussion beginning with a question (E.g. What is the value? How can you resist?) during which we were encouraged to doodle. These drawings were then made into  badges and attached to banners (as an alternative to the conventional flip chart documentation). Two activities involved working in a pair, either facing each other or back to back, with one partner describing (an image or something observed in the space) and the other attempting to draw it. Silver gouache paint was also available so that we could make drawings of the light in photographs we had selected. Graham Hooper has written informatively of the various ways drawing can be incorporated into the photography lesson. The Summer School strategies, perhaps more conceptual in nature, will definitely form part of my regular pedagogy next year.

Still Moving
At the beginning of the week we were shown a series of posters with sets of words, the first of which, "Ball, Block, Blank", would be a continuous idea underpinning our explorations. Our opening activity involved selecting and arranging sets of photographic images of balls, blocks and blanks provided by the lead artists. As the week progressed we made objects in clay, cardboard, sticks and tape which, along with the endlessly recycled photographs, were used as props in a variety of video and film making activities. We explored the interplay between 2 and 3 dimensions, the flattening effect of photography, film and video and the relationship between stillness and movement. I was really inspired by the ways in which a tripod mounted DSLR could be used, in conjunction with a rotating circular table, to dramatise pictures and objects. The camera could look in (on objects placed on the table) or look out (at objects placed on its periphery). In both cases the rotating table created a tracking shot. Later in the week, other kinds of tracking shots were made using a tripod mounted slider and a track made from a wooden board, two plastic poles and skateboard wheels. I enjoyed the way these devices helped to make still objects move and intend to explore this approach much more with students next year.

The week ended with some analogue 16mm experiments, prompted by the visit of artist Bill Leslie. We drew on some 16mm film with coloured pens, shot our own film with his Bolex camera and even processed it by hand in a series of buckets before hanging it to dry with paper clips on a hastily rigged washing line.

Thanks to our darkroom, departmental expertise and the students' fascination with analogue photography and film, this is definitely something I would like to attempt next year.

The classroom as studio
​The Tate Exchange space is very generous and open plan. There are few walls and a minimum of furniture - mobile walls, a couple of plinths, some sofas and chairs. That's about it. There is a small kitchen in the centre and a large cupboard but, otherwise, not much to interrupt the flow of space. Obviously classrooms tend to be a bit more restricted than this. However, I was struck by the way our lead artists, Anna and Alex, used the space they had available to zone activities. We could work as a whole group, then break off into smaller groups or work individually. The morning activities took place near the entrance (and down in the galleries) whereas afternoons were mostly spent at the other end of the space where tables (and the floor) were used to provide a range of prompts for making activities. For example:

• Photograph of photograph (after Jiro Takamatsu). Select a photograph. Re-photograph this image at least three times.
• Photo tracing. Trace the area where two photos you have chosen join together. Trace another over the top. Repeat.
• Looking straight through. Take an image from a magazine that includes a ball, block or blank. Cut a circle from the page and tape to one of the windows. Position the camera on a tripod so that the image fills the screen. Record the shot for 20 seconds.

The room where I teach is zoned to some extent - studio and backdrop at one end, darkroom at the other, and a relatively large classroom set up with desks in the centre. However, this week has encouraged me to re-think both the layout of the central space, the furniture and the use of the various surfaces available for display and experimentation (including the windows). How can I create more of a studio environment in the classroom? How might the students feel more ownership of the space(s)? How can I use display/exhibition in a more integrated way so that students can see their work in process (as well as final outcomes)?

Materials for making
Teaching photography is a tricky business. I am often torn between wanting to focus my pedagogy and resources on the specific processes and materials particular to photography and offering a more expanded version of photography practice that embraces contemporary art. This week has made me realise that this isn't an either/or proposition and that the diversity of practice related to photography should be embraced and celebrated. Alex has recently experimented with Instagram, for example, as a platform for creating a digital exhibition catalogue. Anna's 16mm films and videos often include footage of photographs she has taken being sorted. The fluidity of our making and use of materials this week has been entirely inter-disciplinary - sculpture, drawing, video, film, installation etc. The materials have been mostly cheap and easily accessible - tape, cardboard, clay, pens, papers, gouache, ink - but also surprising - dowel rods, black plasticine, foam blocks, 16mm film. We made tiny clay sculptures, cardboard plinths, crazy pointers and huge apertures all in a matter of minutes. Some of the equipment has been high tech - projectors, flat screen monitors, DSLRs, video cameras, tripods, iPads - but these were used to capture and share other kinds of making, rather than as a focus in themselves. There was a sense in which the technology was there to facilitate other kinds of imaginative activity and making. Most of the photographs made during the week were taken on mobile devices and instantly shared on social networks. I feel I need to expand the repertoire of materials easily available to my students next year.

Time
One of the issues I've been thinking about this year has been the relationship between content and depth. Our GCSE photography course lasts for three years. The temptation has been to pack a lot into this time, partly to give students a really rich and diverse experience but also because we can feel that spending too long on a project can lead to boredom and loss of momentum. This week has again raised the question of how to long to spend refining and developing. There were moments in the week when I felt an urge to keep working on something and was slightly frustrated by being called over for a crit or a new instruction. However, the activities over the five days were structured in such a way that we were able to return to our 'sketches', our initial ideas or half-completed experiments, to further refine them.

We have stripped back the content and number of projects in a our GCSE course for September. We've attempted to do the same to our A level course, getting rid of the AS examination altogether and extending Component 1 into Year 12. We're hoping that this will give students greater opportunities to refine and develop their work, taking a bit longer and perhaps working a bit more deliberately over a series of lessons on a single experiment, rather than being constrained by discrete lesson blocks.

​Another thought I had, following a slightly anarchic performance in the Tanks with our 30 huge cardboard apertures, was whether we could make interesting use of break and lunchtimes to share work with the wider school community and use the element of surprise. This could apply right across the arts with each department taking turns to 'perform' something to a wider audience, making artistic practice more visible and bringing an element of fun to the in-between times and spaces of the building. This needs a bit more thought and planning but I love the idea that ephemeral performances and/or installations might pop up all over the place from September.

As you can probably tell, Tate's Summer School offers a wide range of stimuli, experiences, ideas and encouragement. It was my first time and I hope to do it again next year. If you're an art and/or photography teacher, and can find a way to be in London for five days at the start of the summer holiday (and you can persuade your school to pay for the professional development), I would urge you to consider applying to be part of next year's Summer School. Working alongside exciting artists and colleagues from all sectors and parts of the world has been an enriching,  life-enhancing and joyful experience quite apart from the wonderful CPD. How could you resist?

​Thank you to everyone involved at Tate for offering me the opportunity to get involved, to my fellow participants and to Anna and Alex for their expertise and creativity.

My photos and videos of Summer School 2016 on Flickr.
Tate Summer School 2016 Storify
​Teach Tate Summer School 2016 blog