By Andrea Royle

Crafted by the textile art group at Studio One in response to The Pre-Raphaelites.

By Jayne Shuttlebotham

By Anna Creighton

By Chris Wainhouse

By Heike Poestges-Nmecha

By Jane Shufflebotham

By Liz Scantlebury

Detail from Hireling Shepherd

Detail from Hireling Shepherd

By Janet Mayland

By Anna Olijnch

As part of the Pre-Raphaelite Experiment, we have trialled a new way of working with schools to create a teacher network with a difference.

We have stimulated new approaches to curriculum delivery by giving teachers and teaching assistants space and time to reconnect with and develop their own creative practice. Across a series of artist training sessions, the teachers produced their own creative responses inspired by the Pre-Raphaelite artists. This process was then extended with the pupils and other schools through sessions in the gallery and artists workshops in school.

Seeing the personal, emotionally-charged responses on display “humanised” teachers and strengthened bonds with pupils, particularly with boys.
Teachers gained real ownership of the gallery and realised that it is a creative extension to their classroom; a valuable resource and learning tool.

Watch this reflective film to meet our pioneering teachers and to find more out about this wonderful project.

Listen to The Soundscape Performance HERE.

The Pre-Raphaelite Soundscape was the result of 4 different groups working together to respond to the paintings in the Pre-Raphaelite Experiment with music. It was performed live at Manchester Art Gallery on Friday 23 March 2012. Local children and adults visited the gallery to see the Pre-Raphaelite paintings and went away with ideas that they transformed into sound and song. Each group worked to develop their musical response over a period of 6 months in their community venues, facilitated by professional musicians.  For example, the North Manchester Wellbeing Centre group worked alongside a music therapist from national specialist music charity Nordoff Robbins. Under the musical direction of Simon Jones all three groups were brought together to create a totally new piece of experimental music.

Throughout the process it has been interesting to see students identify with the paintings after discovering they could relate to the themes explored.  A highlight of mine occurred when Levenshulme High School visited the gallery and the girls related the danger of the Death’s Head Hawksmoth, in Holman Hunt’s The Hireling Shepherd, to the recent riots and the fear this evoked within them.

‘We get scared when we watch the news. The media create a hype and today there is more danger in society.’ – Pupil

‘ The moth’s wings spreading represents danger spreading.’ – Pupil

It was workshop moments like this, that with the absence of interpretation panels, allowed people to express a true response to the paintings and what the paintings meant to them personally, which is what the experiment set out to discover.

Each workshop brought new ideas, different angles, creative interpretations and fantastic insights. As an observer  not only was it great to be capturing these moments it was lovely to see children of all ages involving themselves with the stories the paintings had to offer. Year 1 pupils from St James Primary, Rusholme, for example, talked about how the girls in Millais’ Autumn Leaves were ‘collecting leaves to build a home for the hedgehogs’ and the girl in Winter Fuel  is ‘little red riding hood because she is wearing a little red hat.’  The class were so inspired by their journey through the gallery they continued to add to their nature journals back at school, venture on autumn walks and leave comments on the blog. It was really exciting for Amanda and I to then go and visit the school for the follow up session because the children were keen to share their progress with us.

While I documented the process, it was really rewarding to see the positive development for the pupil’s participating but also for the teachers, who became confident enough to lead their own art gallery workshop sessions. I have thoroughly enjoyed being a part of the experiment and have learnt an incredible amount during my time volunteering. My favourite part has been bringing together all the creative responses and brilliant ideas and conveying them through the blog. It’s been a great way to connect everybody who has been a part of the experiment but also to involve those who haven’t. Thank you to everybody I have worked with, I have had a brilliant time.

Manchester Art Gallery

Hear the debut performance of an experimental piece of music featuring sounds of the city, singing, violins, percussion and a harp.

Performers are from Studio One, Hall Lane Singing Group, North Manchester Wellbeing Centre Choir and St. Paul’s RC High School.Musical Director is Simon Jones of Harp and a Monkey.

Friday 23 March 4pm, Manchester Art Gallery

Students really seemed to enjoy building up their own layers of interpretation focusing on metaphor, morals and symbolism when we explored William Holman Hunt The Hireling Shepherd in the gallery.  The use of the objects in the session was key for me as an art educator, not all the students were responsive straight away.  However, having something to hold in a gallery setting really seems to unlock student’s thoughts and feelings. So finding the death’s head hawksmoth in the artstore and getting the go ahead from the conservation team to use in the Human Nature session was fantastic.  The students were so curious about this creature and also the sinister connection to symbolism of the moth in art, literature and film.

The opening part of the Human Nature session involved the students leading with their object and sharing all the interpretations based on the symbolism of the death’s head hawksmoth, apple, feather and sheep.  One highlight was when a member of the public came up to me after observing the first part of the session she said,

 ‘They really get it don’t they, they have just unpicked the whole of that painting without any interpretation panel on the wall.’

Once the students begin to understand that we all see things slightly differently, we all bring our own experiences, memories, norms and values when looking at art, that whatever you think about an artwork is your opinion and as long as you can back your thoughts and feelings up, the students really open up.

Taking the pop up tent into all the schools I worked in for the Artist In Schools sessions was really experimental; I wasn’t sure how the students were going to respond to it.  I gave them a brief, the apple and death’s head hawksmoth group merging ideas together to embellish the outside of the tent.  The feather and sheep groups coming together and bringing their ideas to adorn the inside of the tent. They were really intrigued by Tracy Emins work and we had some interesting chats about conceptual art.

Wow, if you look to the other ‘Human Nature’ blog posts, such as ‘Flight to Freedom’, ‘Inside and Outside thoughts and feelings’ or ‘The difference within … ‘, it’s evident that they all did an amazing job.  I was blown away by their ideas, how they made connections back to the gallery visit and then totally opened up to expressing what it was like to be a young person growing up in the 21^st century.  What surprised me was how well they all worked together especially some of the young people who might find it hard to concentrate in class. They were the students who loved the fact that the day was physical, they were moving around working together, in and out of the tent, they were all so surprised at how quickly the day went.

Each school created a different installation and they all agreed that they had crafted something quite special.  Telling the students that the tent needed to be a blank canvas at the end of the day and that all we would have left of the project would be the observational sketches and documentary photographs really got them thinking about Christos’ art work, and the fact that things don’t last forever.  At the end of the session they were given permission to take photographs themselves and it was great to see them all wanting to capture different aspects of the embellished installation.

Going back to our question of what do the Pre Raphaelites mean to you today?  I would say that most of the young people agreed that The Hireling Shepherd would be the sort of painting they would just glance at and walk past.  However, when the students began to interpret the painting they thought the subject matter was really interesting.  Discussions around temptation, danger, freedom and individual choice meant that they could relate themselves as young people to this artwork from 150 years ago.  It was very experimental without too many restrictions on the students, structured but in a way which gave the students a lot of freedom to be creative and engage in creative dialogue. They all expressed a desire to come back to the gallery and felt a sense of pride and ownership when I told them that as members of the public of Manchester these are your artworks, you own them.  The understood the importance of the Industrial Revolution and that Manchester was at the centre of the world map at the time these artworks were being bought.

I would like to thank all the students who worked with me and shared all their amazing ideas.  Also all the teachers and schools for making me feel so welcome as a visitor and to Hannah Cook for being so supportive in sessions and capturing key moments. Last but not least to Joanne Davies for her amazing creativity and vision and for giving myself and my colleague Matt Wardle the chance to work on such an amazing experiment.

James Collinson’s Answering the Emigrant’s Letter is probably the kind of painting that our school visitors would overlook, in favour of more dramatic and bold images. How would they engage with what appeared to be a family sitting around the table, not doing very much at all? In the spirit of the Pre-Raphaelite Experiment, this was a question that I was keen to investigate. What did the painting mean to Mancunians today?

My own practice is very much rooted in the notion of storytelling, and I’ve had the opportunity to explore the painting’s possible narratives with hundreds of young people, families and adults during the “Experiment”. Even the youngest participants have  astounded me with their insights. As one 6 year observed

“That Dad had better watch out: the Mum isn’t very happy with him!

The strength of personal connections to the painting meant that this was an obvious idea to develop further during my Artists in Schools sessions; the objects depicted in the family’s home were a constant discussion point, and so I asked those taking part to bring in their own treasured possessions to inspire their own personal narratives. We explored the themes that the objects evoked, as this “Word Cloud” illustrates:

But how should we record our stories in a new and visually engaging way? Taking inspiration from the Victorian fashion of collecting, we created “curiosity boxes”; experimenting with layering colour, text and images.

The ideas of ‘family’, ‘friendship’ and ‘the past’ are not historical concepts. The medium of communication isn’t what makes them resonate so strongly. They are OUR stories, and if they are honestly expressed, they connect us all in a profound and unquestionable way.

William Holman Hunts The Hireling Shepherd had inspired the group at a previous visit to the gallery.  Now it was time for them to be inventive and experimental, thinking about how artist use symbolism to convey concepts and meanings.

The groups thought about the symbolism of good and bad, right and wrong.  It was decided by the students that they would adorn the inside and the outside of the tent with the notions of dreams and nightmares, heaven and hell.  They also illuminated the concept of feelings that are locked in and those that are expressed openly.
Quotes such as ‘Be yourself because an original is worth more than a copy’, ‘stay true, stay you’ were some of the ideas expressed.
The students were all really surprised at how quickly the day went and were really proud of the group’s collaboration of the final installation.

One student wrote in the evaluation,
‘I would like to work this way more often, it was very physical and hands on.  It makes the class cooperate and rely on each other it improves teamwork skills.  I gave some good ideas which contributed well for my group.’

Teacher Mrs Howarth  thanked the schools team for the day, saying
‘ it had been inspirational for staff and students.’