“Good theories should make sense in the everyday. They should become illuminated, transformed and made to shimmer more vibrantly by practice.”
— Hackett et al, 2019
This blog is here to document the research discussion sessions at Manchester Art Gallery around the development of the new Clore space. The aim of these sessions is to explore the connections between the development of the new space, themes in current research and the experiences of the group visits to the gallery. We would like to open up discussions around the potential of the new space and how to create an emerging, livable space that people want to come back to. A key part of these discussions is finding a way to record thought processes, decision making and planning so that it is possible to trace the influences and inspiration behind them. That is where this blog comes in.
There are many ways this blog can be used. As we go along I’ll write up summaries of the things we get up to, the themes discussed, any threads that begin to appear and attempt to capture any ‘aha!’ moments that might pop up. Everyone can use this as a record of the sessions.
It is a space where you can add things too. I anticipate (or hope!) each session will leave us pondering over things so that new thoughts might emerge between the sessions. Perhaps something that was said in the discussion sticks in your head and you want to write it down. Perhaps you start noticing something in the way a child moves in a play session. Perhaps a parent mentions something that strikes a chord with our discussions. Any of these ‘somethings’ can be recorded in this blog so that we are discovering connections between the conversations in the session with the things that are happening around us every day.
This started as a private blog, shared only with the participants of the discussion group to contribute to. We have now made this blog public so that we can share our journey with the wider world. Throughout our sessions we have encouraged contributions such as thoughts, questions, observations, snippets of conversation and so on. The only guidelines were that it does not need to be beautifully written, proufound thinking or a polished article. It is just a means to capture moments in our daily life that start to resonate with the sessions which we can take up the next time we meet or just have them recorded as an interesting moment.
This multi-professional discussion group includes the following people and organisations:
Manchester Art Gallery: Katy McCall, Family learning manager, Naomi Kendrick, Artist, Clare Gannaway, Curator and Louise Thompson, Health and wellbeing manager.
Martenscroft Nursery School and Sure Start Children’s Centre: Debbie Keary, Head of Centres, Lisa Taylor, Head Teacher and Leanne Hoyte, Early years practitioner.
Clayton Sure Start Children’s Centre: Joanne Farrell, Head of Centres.
Tiddlywinks Nursery: Jenny Smillie, Nursery area manager
Whitworth Art Gallery: Lucy Turner, Early years engagement manager
MMU: Abi Hackett, Research Fellow, Christina MacRae, Research Fellow, Rachel Holmes, Professor, Ruth Boycott-Garnett, Doctoral student, Laura Breen, Impact and engagement manager
It seems like a completely different world when a group of us set off on an adventure to the PlayWell exhibition at the Wellcome Trust. Some of the displays have already faded away in my mind but the vivid colours of the 100 years old Frobel’s gifts still stand out. The video of Geordie babies babbling away to each other in a back street of Gateshead brought about familiar conversations of playing outside with neighbours of all ages whereas the video of junior school boys ‘let loose’ in an art gallery provided a much less cosy idea of child-led play.
The films spilled into our discussions at the first meeting of the year in March. This was the last time that we all sat in a room together, gathered around photocopies of paintings, sculptures, photographs and sketches; a feast of artworks that will eventually be displayed in the new space. Some of these objects have brought about particular questions around representation, inclusivity and access.
Bonbonnieres: These little pots, originally filled with sweets, could be described as quaint, playful or cute. They have an almost cartoon like quality that may resonate with younger children. Yet they bring to the fore a part of colonial history with their connection to sugar, the sugar trade and the enslaved people working on British owned sugar plantations. There is a strong feeling in the group, that just because this space is aimed at children there should not be a ‘dumming down’ of this history, or even allowing the story of these objects to be ‘swept under the carpet.’ How then, do these stories become visible within the space?
Lenka Clayton’s “The Distance I Can Be From my Son” collection of videos had already sparked an interest from the group, the visceral affect it can have on the viewer as Clayton’s toddling child walks further and further away from the screen could resonate with many parents in the space. As we continue life in lockdown it also brings about new experiences of distance and nearness where parents are living very closely with their children whilst teachers and caregivers are physically so far away.
Portraits of mothers: These poised photographs of families in the galleries were taken with parents who attend the weekly stay and play session with their babies and will be displayed in the space alongside other artworks. These images continue the conversations around ownership, accessibility, representation and voice particularly around who has a presence in the new space and how this presence shapes what happens in the space.
Since our last physical meeting some of us have met virtually to reassess how we might continue the discussions in this current way of life. Next week we shall return to our first proper full meeting of the group, all be it virtually, and we will focus on three questions around our current situation:
1. How do we respond to situation NOW?
2. How do we proceed with planning the family gallery (how are the exhibits accompanied in terms of words)?
3. How might Covid shift/impact how we think about the family space?
You walk through a door into a gallery. You cross over a threshold. You have taken a step from outdoors to indoors where you are shielded from weather and pedestrians. The air is different, the temperature swells, the acoustics change. These are not just the atmospheric changes of moving indoors but are made by the walls of the gallery; the thickness of the stone, the height of the tiled ceiling, the weight of the polished wooden door. These walls were built when children were seen and not heard, and libraries were places of silence. These values still whisper in the walls and work upon you in the same way that a church invites reverence.
Manchester Art Gallery entrance (Bleistift)
What happens when you walk into a gallery? This question seemed to weave itself through our discussions last week. We gathered around the studio table to experiment with children’s movement within a gallery, share examples of nursery visits – holding the little books filled with photos and parent’s descriptions – and played with some specific plans for the new space.
Last month, we had looked outwards, seeing the gallery as connected to the people, place and world that surrounds it. This month, we found ourselves focusing inside the walls of the gallery: the meaning of tiny moments in the gallery space, the heavy doors of the entrance hall and the feeling of entering a gallery building.
Messing about…
Abi’s paper inspired us to consider children’s movement as active communication and learning. We discussed how descriptions of ‘good’ engagement or productive learning, consider movement as a risk where moving is dialogically opposed to learning. It is so often heard from parents and practitioners alike:
‘If only we can slow them down.’
We shared thoughts on how sometimes, movement is tolerated, perhaps even seen as a useful precursor to some ‘proper’ learning, but static engagement is always considered as better and movement is quickly dismissed as ‘messing about.’ But paying attention to the movement of children, as they carry tools from place to place or return repeatedly to the same spot, tells us significant things. And when taken seriously, patterns begin to appear in each new visit. Movement can be exploration and communication. It can be meaningful and purposeful.
Thresholds and desire lines
How many times have you been in a space with a toddler who derives absolute joy and pleasure from running repeatedly out of the door? And how much anticipation and excitement can there be from sneaking closer to the sensors of an automatic door? Thresholds popped up repeatedly in this discussion comparing the differences of heavy wooden doors and swishing glass ones. We talked about how we feel entering a gallery and the different reactions of parents, children and staff as they walked through the gallery door. In some cases, the building had almost a hushing effect, as if there were Victorian values seeping through the walls.
Everyday creativity in sofa cushions
We passed a phone around the room with a photo on the screen. The photo was a pile of sofa cushions, stripped from sofas and leaning precariously against each other. From somewhere inside small faces beamed out at the camera. This every day creativity, the comfort of home and the multiplicity of simple objects can all be found in playing with cushions. We explored how this everyday creativity of cushions in a living room could transfer to the gallery and how the textiles and prints of the collections could merge with the ordinariness of playing with cushions.
Returning to threads
Every time we meet we find those same threads from the first session drawing through – the movement within the gallery space, the vibrancy of objects and the repetition of visits, actions and patterns. This week the vibrancy of objects was present in the doors, the walls and the cushions and we could see how this is absorbed in the web of human relationships in the gallery space; the welcome, the trust and the tiny interactions that make a space open or not.
The Desert by Edwin Henry Landseer, on display at Manchester Art Gallery
Our second session began in the room where the materials for
the Baby Stay and Play were laid out
in anticipation of the many babies who would play amongst them that afternoon. We
watched children on screen in mini gallery adventures, and journeyed around the
gallery space, stopping at artworks that had caught children’s interest in the
nursery visits. In such an active session my notes were less detailed as they
had been in the previous month, but it felt to me like this session had been
one filled with images, more than words. We saw parents playing together and
forgetting about the children, we saw a daughter step up on a plinth to stand
beneath a chandelier, we saw a girl whisper ‘Shhh!’ and tiptoe around the
corner, waiting for the lion in the painting. These images can help us begin to
see the movements, interactions and forces that will shape the new space.
The session was framed by an over arching question of how
the Clore space connects to the rest of the gallery. This question quickly led
the conversation, not only towards the rest of the gallery but also to the city
around us, the changes that have occurred in the last few years, particularly
in relation to changing population, and the very real effects of welfare reform
and the built in delay in receiving entitled support.
‘Corridor’s whisper
run’…
The threads of the previous discussion were evident as we
touched on the role of objects and spaces and what they invite us to do. Objects
that invite us to play do not only connect with children. The father who
dressed his partner in cloth and the parents who had a game of table tennis and
seemed to forget their children, show us the importance of adults being able to
play in these spaces.
The pull of objects was also apparent in the example above of
a daughter stepping up on a plinth to stand beneath a hanging work of art. The
plinth in this case was intended as a barrier yet also worked with the art
itself to invite her to interact with it in a different and contradictory way. The
pull of objects was also at work in our walk around the Halima Cassell exhibition.
The ceramic sculptures that hold a strong tactile element are calling you to
touch. This is another example where objects are not only calling to children.
As we walked through the gallery, a few of us couldn’t resist the one wall
mounted ceramic square that has been placed specifically for people to touch.
Continuing the idea of images that were evident in the conversation
I have detailed three scenes that have stayed with me since the discussion. The
first is a visual exploration of how the Clore fits with the rest of the
gallery, city and the world around us that seemed to permeate the discussions.
The second is a memory taken from one of the film clips and the third is an
example of the current Clore space including some of the aspects of how this
space works, a collage of interactions that were discussion in the session.
Image 1: the gallery
is not separate to the world around it
Imagine you are in a cinema. The screen shows the bare feet
of a baby stamping and curling their toes on a crinkly silver floor. As the
camera pans out you see the mother holding the baby’s hands as she balances. As
the camera continues you see the space around them, the artwork, objects and furniture
of the Clore space. The camera moves further away and now you see the other
galleries in the grand stone building with tiny people walking quietly through,
as if you had lifted the lid from a dolls house. As the camera continues you
see a city where red brick buildings are overshadowed by cranes constructing shiny
sky scrapers. As the camera pulls away you see an island disconnected from a
sprawling mainland. The camera pulls away for the last time and rests on a
planet covered with ocean and melting ice.
Image 2: ‘the
unexpected powerfulness of something really simple’
The floor is covered with paper. The paper is divided with
tape into a grid of rectangles. Each rectangle has a pot of paint and a few
painting tools. In each rectangle there is a child, printing, stroking with
brushes, making marks and movements on the paper. Some children are sitting at
the edge of the paper, some lying on their stomachs. They are drawn to and
content with their own space, occasionally crossing a line of tape to swap a
colour or a painting tool.
Image 3: ‘There’s not
many places you can play alongside strangers’
There is a space in the gallery where families are playing.
Perhaps a baby and his mum are building towers and knocking them down, perhaps
a child is standing the blocks up straight, one next to the other in an ever
growing line across the gallery. Perhaps two children and their grandad are
building an igloo and crawling inside. The families are content in their
separate games yet at times boundaries are built, interrupted or overlapped. What
happens if the line of tall blocks creeps slowly towards the igloo? What
happens if the baby shouts with delight every time the tower falls? What
happens if the baby and the girl reach out for the same tall brick?
The Future Gallery
Next month we will be looking directly to the future and
discussing specific plans for the new Clore space. In preparation for this I
have begun to imagine what values, interactions and physical objects might work
together in the new space. The final section here is the beginning of my own
thoughts based on the discussions so far.
In this place there are spaces to join, objects that
invite you to share, perhaps tussle and negotiate. There are images that evoke
movement and stories. This is a space where art is not defined by a frame. The
artwork is the switches, grooves in the door frame and patterns in the floor.
Family built sculptures of sponge or woodchip are on display. They are built
and dispersed, then rebuilt into something new.
This is a space of
ordinary tactile treasures. Objects that call to all hands to touch, make a
mark or tap a rhythm. This space is abundant with them, not defined by the lack
of food, money, time or shelter that surrounds us.
You can put your
shopping down here, you can forget about the pram. You can follow your child
out into the gallery without rushing back for hats and scarves. You can rest,
play, feed, drink, watch, follow, share, create, talk, move, draw, listen. Each
time you do one of these things, you change what happens in the space. Each
time you do one of these things, you make it possible for others to do it too. Each
time you do one of these things you change the space and the space changes you.
In a large stately gallery, through an almost secret door, around
a long thin table, we gathered. We came from outreach teams, children centres,
nurseries, galleries and universities. Collectively we were experts in art, education,
outreach, engagement and curation. We sat around the table, the type you might
imagine fit for a banquet, and shared a feast of words, ideas and encounters.
We started with three main threads; perhaps a red one for
movement, perhaps blue for objects and perhaps a green one for repetition. As
we spoke, these threads wove together and split apart. Once held in the space,
connected by a particular event or memory, we saw how each of these threads
were working together, simultaneously, so that eventually somebody said that it
was impossible to separate them out again. As we spoke, the threads formed three
new sturdy ropes of mish mashed colours. What follows here is an attempt to
identify what these new ropes are made of and what holds them together.
What children do/can
do/have done.
Our conversation was peppered throughout by the unexpected,
wonderful and varied things that children do every day. We discussed how
children can make their own stories, discover their own interests and that it
is often ‘something totally unexpected that they take away’ from a gallery
visit. The importance of acknowledging this ability to direct their own play
linked to discussion on the role of the adults in these interactions. There is
a great worth in resisting each moment becoming a teaching opportunity and
leaving space, value and time for the children’s own interests.
‘We need to live up to what the children bring.’
Moments from the children’s visits to the gallery stimulated reflections on how children experience the space; the way some of the children liked to have something to hold, even if they didn’t seem to do much with the thing in their hand, they would carry it around the space; the way that the children changed over time from being initially quiet, almost subdued by the space, to leading the adults around to show them the things that they knew, ‘come and see this!’, by the end of the project. One group was drawn to a painting of a cat and baby which became a moment of repetition on each visit. The children would point out new things in the painting that the adults had never spotted and developed their own ritual of finding the painting each time.
A Flood by John Everett Millais in Manchester Art Gallery became a focus point for young children in their visits to the gallery
From these moments grew the importance of repetition. Visiting
the space on a regular basis meant that they could see how the space changed
over time and feel their own familiarity within it. The children could build
their own space and showed us how ‘children can change museums and museums can
change children’. The ability to change the gallery happens when the children
have a presence in the space which leads on to the next twist of rope.
The web of human relationships
within a gallery space
We became aware of the entanglement of relationships between
different people within the gallery; between children, parents, practitioners,
other visitors, gallery supervisors etc. We discussed the greyness of rules
within a gallery, e.g. ‘you can touch but not climb’, and how somethings call
to be touched and are irresistible, not just to children. We also acknowledged
the different ways that each person will navigate around these rules, without
disregarding them, and how intervention from gallery attendants can lead to an
undermining of parents who are aware of their child(ren) and are confident at
what point they would need to step in.
Other visitors to the gallery have their own ideas about who
owns the space, what can happen in the space, what unspoken rules must be followed
and who decides those rules. There are still preconceived ideas that children
are not welcome in a gallery and would not know how to behave ‘properly’. Those
who do bring children into these spaces often feel a weight of expectation in
the gallery and feel the need to apologise. This also leaks out to parents and
nursery practitioners who feel that the gallery is not a space for them and may
never have entered a gallery before. This includes some of the adults involved
in the nursery visits. Originally nervous, some of these participants have
commented on how their confidence has grown and how they now feel comfortable
in returning to the gallery.
What is often left out of these discussions is that the children’s
presence in the gallery can enhance the experience of others and contribute
enriching, vibrant and new moments to the space as well as providing opportunities
for children to encounter new ways of being within a gallery that may differ to
other spaces that they know. As a group we recognised that there is a shift in
perceptions ‘out there and inside’ but that this still has a long way to go.
The Clore in wider
relation to the gallery, the structures and resources.
The Clore is not an isolated space in the middle of nowhere.
It is one space that is part of a building, a community, a set of structures
and agendas, a discourse of childhood development and so on. This was very
present in our discussions. The gallery has recently taken a new approach to
the collections and the space under the directorship of Alistair Hudson. This encourages
curators to think about the art in a different way including how to treat the
collection differently so that they can have a positive impact on people’s
lives. This allows for a stronger consideration for a holistic understanding of
a family visit to the gallery and opens up more topical conversation on
wellbeing.
In considering the gallery as an holistic experience, we considered
the Clore space as a base or nest from which the families can then explore the
rest of the gallery. This stimulated questions around how the Clore space
connects to the rest of the building, physically and visually. We acknowledged that
the Clore is not just a play space or just a gallery space but something that incorporates
both of these things.
There was a strong commitment from the group that
development of these spaces and projects require care, time and resources and
that attempts to rush something when a small pot of money becomes free has not
produced the same results. This connected to how this work sits within the city
agendas and funding, how to have the confidence to know that what you’re doing is
‘the really right’ thing. How to create an open space that confidently addresses
issues of inequalities.
Continuing…
By the end of our first meeting there was a buzz in the
room. It felt like, by our words, we had unlocked something in all of us; a
sharing of passion, interest and ambition for our work with young children and
their families. Next week we shall meet again, and I hope we can take sustenance
from these sessions that can be carried further to our encounters in the every
day.
The final note that I frantically scribbled on the day was
‘Does it call to you to respond?’, this was in relation to the way space shapes
bodies and movement yet feels like a question for the whole conversation. It is
a good question to leave with as we prepare to meet again next week. Since we
were last sat around the table, has our conversation called to any of us to
respond; to wonder, to build, to change?
Below are the
unaltered notes from the discussion
Thingness and objects
How does it operate/work?
Not making assumptions
‘curious thing’
A concern: How? – How to create engagement and
address issues. – Is it about creating emotional response? Creating stories?
Do we need an artist constantly present? – Children make
their own stories. Children are drawn to minute parts.
Children (in the visits?) liked to have something to hold.
Children building their own spaces
Cultural capital
Links with language development
When talking about children you can’t separate these themes
(of movement/vibrancy/space etc). they are running through everything.
Resisting it becoming a teaching opportunity
We need to live up to what the children bring. (giving space
for that etc, valuing it)
Doesn’t have to be led by the agendas but needs to support
the work in the city.
Objects: (can be a…) hole, glass case, painting. E.g.
objects are everything (not just the art pieces)
Museum and gallery spaces are almost enough in themselves.
Stairs, lifts, lockers etc where children are interested.
Little and often visits are so much more valuable.
First they might not say much but by the end they were
taking us around (and showing them things, example from the visits)
The Clore as a base for the rest of the gallery.
“I didn’t know there was a play (space?)”
Playtime’ at Whitworth.
Baby steps. Builds confidence to explore the rest.
Holistic of the whole building
Not just a play or exhibition space.
Positioning of objects
Displays to crawl over
Reading their bodies of the children you know – the
surfaces, the space etc.
Repetitiveness
Building a relationship.
“I used to take him there because he could run”
Building museums out of Lego. Beginning to look at things.
“children can change museums and museums can change
children.”
Notice how things change each time they come.
We HAD to go and visit these paintings.
“Waiting for the Lion”
Museums and galleries accepting children’s presence and
getting the message to other users.
Physical in the space.
Example of feeling the need to apologise to other visitors.
Can enhance other’s experiences.
A shift out there and inside (e.g. of perceptions?)
Important to learn different ways of being in different
spaces.
You only learn through experience – back to little and
often.
Adults also want to touch – links to role modelling.
Feel a weight of expectation in the gallery (as regular
adult visitors)
Baby and cat painting — so big! Walking past.
Consider eye level.
Wanted to take the postcard home (a child of the cat
painting)
Relationship between Clore and the nest
OBJECTS TO HOLD
How great to select objects that really are the RIGHT
objects
Sometimes it’s something totally unexpected that they take
away.
Preconceived ideas and empowering practitioners who are nervous.
From nursery visits: practitioners are now comfortable in the
space after the sessions.
Repetition and changes over time
Rules of behaviour are sometimes not clear cut. E.g. you can
touch but not climb. At YSP/
Greyness.
Adults as responsible for children’s behaviour
Some things are irresistible.
Differing opinions between parents and staff. (E.g. when staff runs after a child to stop them touching something when actually ‘I’ve got this thanks’ and know their behaviours and the limits)
e.g you know how close they can get v.s a panic from
practitioners.
In an attempt to keep things easy to find on the blog, this post is specifically for any bits and pieces that you would like to share with the group. Papers, video clips, books, chapters, policies, websites, exhibitions, anything! It should be possible to include links in the comments section or send any documents to me and I can upload them to the main content of this post. Feel free to add documents into your own separate posts if you want to and I can duplicate anything here for easy access.
Great to meet everyone last week, my head is brimming with all the potential and posssibilities that each one of you has brought to the table. Thanks very much for being a part of this.
to start us off (and to check that it works!) here is the summary to the chapter from our first session.
Manchester Art Gallery Impact: Research and Practice 