Curious Gallery December 2015 – A Student View

Over the past 15 months myself and many others have been fortunate enough to take part in this once in a lifetime experience.

The artwork on show is inspired by the regrowth and development of Liverpool and some are based on the students interpretation of photographs from the Metamorphosis of Japan when they viewed the photographs here at the Open Eye Gallery in March 2015.

Over the course of these workshops they have provided me with much more confidence than I had before and they also gave something to look forward to.

Myself and the other pupils from Upton Hall School FCJ, Bellerive, Claremount Specialist Sports College and Woodchurch High School participated in several workshops with Alan Thompson of Hi Impact, which introduced us to several new apps on iPads; we have created poetry from the book The Rescue Man by Anthony Quinn in a workshop with Jake Thorne, and we learnt how to use Photoshop to manipulate images of Liverpool past and present.

With the skills we had learnt from our introductory lesson on Photoshop at the Learning Lighthouse in Wallasey we were able to transfer them onto our own photographs that we took when we went on a guided walk with the local historian Colin Dilnot. On this guided walk we were taken to 4/5 destinations, which we had seen in photographs from Liverpool Central Library’s City Engineers’ Archive which had been taken in the aftermath of the bombing of Liverpool during World War 2. The photographs we saw showed how derelict Liverpool was and how terribly it had been affected by the war. In these places that we visited with huge buildings and skyscrapers, we were reminded of what it was like for the people standing there during the war staring out at bare emptiness for miles long.

It was truly astonishing to see how much Liverpool has grown, prospered and developed as an amazing city. We were also taught how to convey a message in our artwork and how to create a haiku. We did not just get shown and told how to do all of these things, we were given many opportunities to create our own haikus, edit photographs (using Photoshop) and make our own pieces of artwork.

These workshops not only taught us new, different things that we wouldn’t learn normally in school but we also made new friends and we were given an unforgettable experience that we have been lucky enough to take part in. I know from my own point of view and I’m sure many people feel the same as I do when I say that it is an honour and also very exciting to be showing our artwork in this gallery, especially because this is the first time the Open Eye Gallery has ever exhibited children’s artwork. I am sure that everyone who participated in this wonderful experience will agree with me when I say that it has been truly fantastic to be a part of it. I would also like to say on behalf of all of the students, thank you so much to everyone who has made it possible especially Sarah Fisher, the Director of Open Eye and her team.

Jess German

Year 9

Upton Hall School FCJ