It's been an extraordinary year (and I'm not referring to Brexit, the Orange One or the phenomenal phoenix JC). Now that I've taken a couple of breaths and gained some much-needed perspective on the academic year just ended, I realise that 2016-17 was marked by some amazing interactions with professional practitioners.
Allow me to re-cap...
Allow me to re-cap...
The year began for me with Tate's Summer School where Anna Lucas, Alex Schady and Billy Leslie expertly supported our explorations of the relationship between still and moving images, working with objects, performance, time and space. I've written about experience here and here so I won't labour the point. However, this experience has positively influenced my practice in the classroom in numerous ways. Interestingly, none of the above artists would consider themselves photographers and yet their engagement with light and lens-based media is central to their practice.
Emboldened by my experience at Summer School and keen to get a practitioner into school to work alongside the students, I arranged a workshop in October for Year 11 and 13 with Dafna Talmor. Dafna's practice involves cutting up negatives of landscapes and piecing them back together before making colour enlargements she refers to as 'Constructed'. She has a wonderfully calm demeanour combined with a quiet intensity that both classes found mesmerising. For the workshop, Dafna brought along salvaged 35mm slides and we managed to purchase some cheap A4 light boxes and a couple of old slide projectors. Even the most seemingly disaffected members of the Year 11 class were fully engaged and productive during the workshop. The process of working on such a small scale, with a slide, scalpel and sellotape, embracing chance and then seeing the resulting image projected large on the classroom wall, was magical. Luckily, Dafna then had a show at Photofusion in Brixton in April 2017, so I took my Year 9 group to see it. Dafna gave them a guided tour and answered their questions. We then visited Tate Modern to see both The Radical Eye and Wolfgang Tillmans shows (totally free thanks to the Tate's new bursary scheme).
But I've got ahead of myself a bit there. Rewind to December 2016 when the marvellous Nick Waplington came to talk to our A-level photographers. One of the things I love about Instagram is the way it makes contacting artists and photographers so straightforward and immediate. Nick responded to a message from my colleague Dianne and agreed to pop into school one afternoon. I hope he doesn't mind me saying that he came for the price of a parking space and a cup of tea! Very generous given the current funding situation in schools.
Nick gave a really engaging talk, beginning with his work as a student in the school darkroom. His passion, independence, commitment and humour made a real impression on the students. He even left us a personal copy of his challenging book 'Settlement'. His advice to aspiring photographers was fascinating - take photographs of what you know and love, regardless of whether it's fashionable, because in the future what looks mundane and ordinary today will assume the status of cultural history. Nick's own practice embraces a wide range of photography genres. Each project appears different to the next. He is interested in everything and sees no reason why his work should not reflect that. He also paints and keeps sketchbooks. This was a really refreshing insight for the students, a model of how being an artist/photographer is a state of mind rather than a particular brand of image-making.
January brought a workshop for Year 9 and 10 with the amazing Wandering Bears collective. Again, Dianne came up trumps with the contact, following a workshop she attended at The Photographers' Gallery. She asked them to attempt to repeat their 'Inside Out, Upside Down' activity with our Year 9 and 10 classes, something they'd not done before in a school setting. The idea is simple: students attempt to re-create several contemporary photographic compositions using a variety of intriguing props - fruit, bricks, plastic cups etc.
January brought a workshop for Year 9 and 10 with the amazing Wandering Bears collective. Again, Dianne came up trumps with the contact, following a workshop she attended at The Photographers' Gallery. She asked them to attempt to repeat their 'Inside Out, Upside Down' activity with our Year 9 and 10 classes, something they'd not done before in a school setting. The idea is simple: students attempt to re-create several contemporary photographic compositions using a variety of intriguing props - fruit, bricks, plastic cups etc.
Each student then received their responses printed out on stickers so they could attach them to the pages of a specially designed booklet. The three Wandering Bears were friendly, modest, stylish, encouraging, enterprising chaps - the perfect role models for our young photographers. They made the whole business of photography (and living the precarious life of a professional artist) seem like a whole lot of fun and not something you had to do on your own. They challenged the clichéd image of a lonely, tortured artist starving in a garret.
February was our PhotoPedagogy intervention at Tate Exchange. Simon Baker wrote a fantastic introduction to our newspaper and we received submissions from Dafna Talmor, Tom Oldham, Marysa Dowling, Daniel Donnelly, Mimi Mollica and Gregory Crewdson. Although we didn't get to work with her directly, Marysa paid a visit and the always supportive Tom Oldham popped in to lend words of encouragement. Chris has written about Tom's fantastic visit to St. Peter's on his blog. Tom also came along to our appearance at Offprint London in May. Our Post 16 photography students were brilliant, leading activities and looking for all the world like Tate Modern was their natural stomping ground. We were very proud teachers.
February was our PhotoPedagogy intervention at Tate Exchange. Simon Baker wrote a fantastic introduction to our newspaper and we received submissions from Dafna Talmor, Tom Oldham, Marysa Dowling, Daniel Donnelly, Mimi Mollica and Gregory Crewdson. Although we didn't get to work with her directly, Marysa paid a visit and the always supportive Tom Oldham popped in to lend words of encouragement. Chris has written about Tom's fantastic visit to St. Peter's on his blog. Tom also came along to our appearance at Offprint London in May. Our Post 16 photography students were brilliant, leading activities and looking for all the world like Tate Modern was their natural stomping ground. We were very proud teachers.
Offprint was bonkers - a full-on weekend-long photobook festival in the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern where we told our story, sold a few zines and chatted to photobook artists and publishers from all over the world. I spotted Nick Waplington signing his latest book, we bumped into the effervescent Mimi Mollica and had a brief chat with David Campany. As always, our students put in a shift and we had a great time. Hopefully, we'll be doing it again next year.
In June I was contacted by the lovely Victoria Batt who had contributed to Tate Exchange, who I follow on Instagram, who came along to Offprint for a chat and who had just completed an MA in photography at Central Saint Martins. Her Tate Exchange project had involved a performance featuring a dress made of Selfies so it was the perfect excuse to ask her (and her fellow MA graduate friend Will who also came along) to collaborate with Year 9 on their Selfie project. It was great for the students to meet Victoria and Will, fresh out of university and finding their way as artists. They were both very generous with their attention, kind and full of praise for the students' experiments.
In June I was contacted by the lovely Victoria Batt who had contributed to Tate Exchange, who I follow on Instagram, who came along to Offprint for a chat and who had just completed an MA in photography at Central Saint Martins. Her Tate Exchange project had involved a performance featuring a dress made of Selfies so it was the perfect excuse to ask her (and her fellow MA graduate friend Will who also came along) to collaborate with Year 9 on their Selfie project. It was great for the students to meet Victoria and Will, fresh out of university and finding their way as artists. They were both very generous with their attention, kind and full of praise for the students' experiments.
The year culminated in a visit from one of my photo heroes. I've followed Peter Fraser's career since I first moved to London in 1989 and saw his work at The Photographers' Gallery. Instagram again provided the vehicle for an invitation, followed up with an email. Peter kindly agreed to visit the school for a relatively modest fee and a parking space. Di got in some posh biscuits and we were all set. Of course, no-one mentioned the fire alarm drill, so we spent the first 20 minutes of Peter's talk standing outside watching the entire school being berated for their sloppy exit before trooping back in. Peter was kind enough to find the whole thing quite amusing.
Needless to say, his talk was captivating, beginning with the amazing Powers of 10 film by Charles and Ray Eames and taking us through each stage of his career with a mixture of thoughtful reflection, personal candour and entertaining stories. It might have been tempting for him to leave out some of the more intellectual elements of his practice but I was very grateful that he including everything in. The talk was pitched perfectly - just outside the easy reach of the students, encouraging them to think hard (the first sign that learning might be taking place) and imagine new possibilities for the medium.
Needless to say, his talk was captivating, beginning with the amazing Powers of 10 film by Charles and Ray Eames and taking us through each stage of his career with a mixture of thoughtful reflection, personal candour and entertaining stories. It might have been tempting for him to leave out some of the more intellectual elements of his practice but I was very grateful that he including everything in. The talk was pitched perfectly - just outside the easy reach of the students, encouraging them to think hard (the first sign that learning might be taking place) and imagine new possibilities for the medium.
Peter ended his visit with a Q&A during which he was asked what advice he would give to a young photographer wishing to pursue a career in the medium. His reply was telling. "First," he said, "you must decide whether you are the sort of person who likes to take photographs or who must take photographs. Secondly, I would advise you to minimise your outgoings and maximise your income." Sage advice indeed.
I would like to take this opportunity to publicly thank all the professionals with whom we have worked this year. I can't stress enough the value of getting professional practitioners into school. Don't be too proud. Beg for money if you have to. Stress the transformational impact of students (who are becoming artists) meeting the real deal, especially if your students have little or no experience of meeting artists in their everyday lives. All of our visitors have been inspiring, charming, encouraging and, most importantly, authentic. It's clear that they live and breath their practices, embodying the qualities essential for survival in an unpredictable world. We call these qualities the Tallis Habits - inquisitive, collaborative, persistent, disciplined and imaginative. Teachers obviously have a central role to play in modelling these qualities and encouraging students to be creative. But when this encouragement can be rubber stamped by a visiting practitioner, whether they are at the beginning of or in the latter stages of their careers, the effects can be profound.
Here's hoping 2017-18 provides yet more opportunities for us to meet the professionals.
Happy holidays.
Jon Nicholls
Thomas Tallis School
I would like to take this opportunity to publicly thank all the professionals with whom we have worked this year. I can't stress enough the value of getting professional practitioners into school. Don't be too proud. Beg for money if you have to. Stress the transformational impact of students (who are becoming artists) meeting the real deal, especially if your students have little or no experience of meeting artists in their everyday lives. All of our visitors have been inspiring, charming, encouraging and, most importantly, authentic. It's clear that they live and breath their practices, embodying the qualities essential for survival in an unpredictable world. We call these qualities the Tallis Habits - inquisitive, collaborative, persistent, disciplined and imaginative. Teachers obviously have a central role to play in modelling these qualities and encouraging students to be creative. But when this encouragement can be rubber stamped by a visiting practitioner, whether they are at the beginning of or in the latter stages of their careers, the effects can be profound.
Here's hoping 2017-18 provides yet more opportunities for us to meet the professionals.
Happy holidays.
Jon Nicholls
Thomas Tallis School
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