Year 11 Art & Design students experienced a day of art and culture by visiting both the Tate galleries last week.
Ms Lambert’s class are currently halfway through their Sculpture unit and visiting the Tate Modern gave them opportunities to look at modern and contemporary work. In their next sculpture project students will be studying conceptual art and will ask those key questions which many people think: ‘Why is that art?’ and ‘What will art look like in the future?’
Ms Bainbridge’s class visited the Tate Britain. Here’s an account of their day, by Luke Mason 11E:
On the 17th of October, Ms Bainbridge’s Year 11 GCSE Art & Design group went to Tate Britain. We travelled by the District line train from Dagenham East station to Westminster station. On the way to Tate Britain, we walked along the river Thames past the Houses of Parliament and the statue of Emmeline Pankhurst.
While at Tate Britain we saw ‘The Procession’ by Hew Locke, a British sculptor and contemporary visual artist, as well as the main collection. In ‘The Procession’ by Hew Locke, we saw a huge insulation about slavery. We took many photos and sketched directly from the artwork. In the galleries we saw many different artworks: paintings; photographs and sculptures.
Thank you to Ms Bainbridge and Ms Buckingham for an amazing day out.
Whether it is through workshops, educational visits, or out of class learning, the Visual Arts department strives to enhance all students’ cultural literacy, providing them with greater cultural capital.
The visual arts embody some of the highest forms of human creativity and we aim to engage, inspire and challenge students not only to become creative learners but to become principled, resilient, open, understanding and disciplined individuals. We aim to equip them with the knowledge skills and understanding to experiment, invent and create their own thoughtful work in response to a theme. As students progress through the key stages, they are able to respond critically and develop a more rigorous understanding of the visual arts in a wider context. They gain an insight into how art both reflects and shapes our history, and contributes to its culture, creativity and wealth. We believe that studying the visual arts provides students with technical skills and a cultural literacy, which increases employability and social mobility.
Studying the visual arts can also help with understanding, interpreting and negotiating the complexities and diversity of society. We give the next generation of artists, designers, engineers, creators and cultural leaders the opportunity to develop the imagination and skills that are vital to our future. Arts and cultural learning encourages awareness, empathy and appreciation of differences and diversity and the views of others.
