Amy Pickles & Sally Hackett

As artists and workshop facilitators Sally and Amy will explore naïve elements and influences from childhood on their work with the people who gave them their first learning experience, their Mums.

Their mums are teachers. Together they will discuss the influence socially engaged work has on their practices, while assessing it alongside the educational system to ask where and how artistic activity is nurtured in today’s society.

They will be reading from two influential texts by John Holt – How Children Fail and How Children Learn, as well as using key articles from the archive of the Schooling and Culture Journal and previous issues of æ. The former is a collaboration between a group of radical left educationalists and young working class school students that began in the late 70's. It is currently being reactivated, its archival material and documentation is held by MayDay Rooms in London. æ is Welling School’s bi-annual newspaper that acts as a platform for the intersection of Art and Education. Welling School is an 11 - 18 mixed Academy in Kent with a Visual Arts Specialism.

These texts will also be discussed with students and teachers of The Aberdeen Green School, an independent school in Maryculter, Aberdeenshire.

Amy, Sally, Sara and Lindy will be hosting a unique workshop for artists and their parents on the 16th and 17th July, to open up their conversations and celebrate the cycle of creative life!