‘School Without Walls,’ Hauser & Wirth Somerset, 2024. Video: Lee Pretious
Somerset Education Lab Hosts ‘School Without Walls’
‘School Without Walls’ places the arts at the heart of the curriculum, transforming models of learning outside a traditional classroom context. Educators, artists and cultural organizations work together to co-design learning alongside children, with adults observing, listening, documenting and being responsive to children’s ideas. Over the course of one week, young people from St Aldhelm’s Church School transferred their learning from the school classroom to the gallery’s ‘Education Lab: Open Art School.’ The students, aged between 5 and 6 years, were able to co-design creative, inquiry-based learning alongside artists and academics from Bath Spa University, to realise an open, accessible and imaginative creative environment, taking inspiration from the exhibition ‘Phyllida Barlow. unscripted’ at Hauser & Wirth Somerset.
The Learning program ran from 1 – 4 October 2024, and was facilitated by Dr Penny Hay, Professor of Imagination at Bath Spa University, artists Holly Le-Var and Matthew Lecce, and the Hauser & Wirth Learning team.
The concept of ‘school’ was reconsidered at the gallery, encouraging an immersive creative experience for the young people and their teachers. The project placed the children at the center of their own learning with activities stemming from their own interests and motivations, as opposed to pre-planned classroom lessons. It was important to work closely with the teachers to demonstrate the value of art-based activities within the classroom and the role of art as a cross-curricular activity. Concepts of inspiration, immersion and invention were embedded so that each young person was given agency to co-direct their imaginative thinking in a creative manner. The week culminated in a shared pop-up gallery of learning with family and friends.
‘Confidence in all of the children has grown in terms of communication and their imaginations, how they are working collaboratively together. And it is even impacted them socially. There are children that have been really quite shy that have come out of their shells and they are now playing with other children.’—Amelia Pickett-Tupper, Teacher, St Aldhelm’s Church School
‘School Without Walls,’ Hauser & Wirth Somerset, 2024. Photo: Clare Walsh
‘School Without Walls,’ Hauser & Wirth Somerset, 2024. Photo: Clare Walsh
The project forms part of the wider Education Lab, ‘Open Art School’, responding to the exhibition ‘Phyllida Barlow. unscripted,’ curated by Frances Morris, and demonstrates Phyllida Barlow’s life-long engagement with arts education. Barlow’s encouragement of her students to develop their own independent ways of thinking was influential on the outcomes for this project. Particularly, Barlow’s championing of process over outcome, as this project encouraged the young people to experiment with ideas and materials, and not fixate on finishing a piece of work, or to worry about what they may have perceived to be mistakes.
‘School Without Walls’ began in 2010 as a collaboration between The Egg Theatre and House of Imagination in Bath, UK. House of Imagination is a research organization with a focus on children and young people’s creative and critical thinking (formerly 5x5x5=creativity). The initiative draws on the latest thinking within creative pedagogy and experimental learning, providing an interactive space for new ideas, explorations and working methods, inviting a multitude of voices and communities to engage through making.
‘Art is not confined to galleries and museums. It exists in everyday life, in the smallest acts of creativity.’—Phyllida Barlow
‘School Without Walls,’ Hauser & Wirth Somerset, 2024. Photo: Clare Walsh
About ‘Phyllida Barlow. unscripted’
The work of Phyllida Barlow (1944 – 2023) takes over Hauser & Wirth Somerset in a celebration of the British artist’s transformative approach to sculpture, marking the 10th anniversary of the arts center that was inaugurated by Barlow’s solo exhibition ‘GIG’ in 2014. The landmark exhibition, curated by Frances Morris, draws on her close working relationship with the artist during her lifetime. ‘Phyllida Barlow. unscripted’ explores the evolution of Barlow’s formal and expressive vocabulary, bringing together singular sculptures, installations, studio maquettes and drawings from her extensive career, some of which will be on public view for the first time. The exhibition is on view through Sunday 5 January 2025.
About Phyllida Barlow
For almost 60 years, British artist Phyllida Barlow took inspiration from her surroundings to create imposing installations that can be at once menacing and playful. She created large-scale yet anti-monumental sculptures from inexpensive, low-grade materials such as cardboard, fabric, plywood, polystyrene, scrim, plaster and cement. These constructions were often painted in industrial or vibrant colors, the seams of their construction left at times visible, revealing the means of their making. Barlow’s restless invented forms stretch the limits of mass, volume and height as they block, straddle and balance precariously. The audience is challenged into a new relationship with the sculptural object, the gallery environment and the world beyond. Barlow exhibited extensively across institutions internationally and in 2017 represented Britain at the Venice Biennale.
‘School Without Walls,’ Hauser & Wirth Somerset, 2024. Photo: Clare Walsh
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