Preparation
Preparation and Presentations of the project Exploration – a short insight
Before 16th March 2009:
We wrote letters to key workers and parents, informing them about the project; times for the presentations and schedule of the different workshops.
We also printed some flyers and posters to be hung up and given out at the day service.
Sue and I decided to give a visual presentation to staff and people using the day service to fully inform everyone from the Day Service what Exploration is, to make the process transparent and also to introduce Nickova and Ana Kuzan the photographer.
Presentations on 20th and 25th of March 2009
Presentations were designed as power point presentation including images from Project Art Works, Hastings and my previous projects. They were shown the first time in the ‘great hall’ and the second time in the small cinema of the Centre.
The presentations were very visual with lots of images about the painting process and how messy it can get, including the people involved. It also showed that the outcomes are most likely to be expressive – abstract. We wanted to make sure that people were well informed about Exploration. We explained that this project was not ‘another art class’ but should give lots of room to experiment, to take risks and to get messy.
We gave the presentation twice: One for the mainstream service users who would possibly be interested in taking part in the workshop ‘Portrait’. We then showed a second slightly adapted version for more severe disabled people and their key workers, inviting them to take part in ‘Discovering Myself” (For the Service units OASIS, ISIS and SPECTRUM).
During the presentation of the ‘Portrait’ people had the chance to have a Polaroid picture taken and that was very well received. The presentation gave them the opportunity to decide if this workshop would be of interest to them.
The presentations have been generally very well received and we had very good feedback from everyone! It was an exceptionally good way of building a trust relationship with the Day Services and it’s people. The key workers got a good overview of the project and could make valuable suggestions of which people would be the right participants to gain from the project.
