Our Specialisms: Art Update

Artsweek 2020 - A Celebration of Art, Culture and Heritage at Capital City Academy

This year we dedicated Artsweek to reclaiming our own history and culture and also to fostering healing and mental wellbeing. Art for Wellbeing is known to be an expressive outlet when words fail. The Artsweek sessions encouraged self-expression and connection with others, providing the opportunity to  help students build a sense of belonging and encourage them to be greater advocates for themselves and the things they believe in.

Our ‘spotlight’ artist this year is Faith Ringgold, a black American artist who creates issue-based story quilts that communicate both her personal story and black history.

The aim of our project is to create a collaborative memory quilt which will function as a symbol of healing and solidarity for our school community. Students have each produced a small art piece that we will sew together to create a large quilt.

The Artsweek session also fell during BHM so we thought it would be a great opportunity to promote artists of colour from cultures that reflect those of our CCA family of which Faith Ringgold is just one. To do so, we have also created an exciting Arts Hunt.

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We hope the Artsweek sessions have made a powerful impact on our students giving them the opportunity to reflect on recent events and express their own voice. CCA holds the belief that both the arts and academics are equally important. As art teachers one of our major responsibilities is to help our students, not only get to know and understand something with their minds but also to feel it emotionally and physically, motivating our students to turn their thinking into action and to constantly be searching for new ideas. The power of art fosters creativity and has built confidence in our students as well as developing their sense of identity. The arts have continuously  helped our  students develop critical thinking and the ability to interpret the world around us and, perhaps more importantly, helped our students with their wellbeing.

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Year 9 3D students Plaster Cast

Our Year 9 3D students have created plaster casts of plants and flowers to record the natural forms’ textures, patterns, and delicacy in detail. The casts allow students to capture the fleeting moment of beauty long after the plants have faded and died.

The students very much enjoyed the process, which started with arranging the flowers and foliage onto wet clay. A wooden frame is then placed on the clay and the plaster is poured in and allowed to set. The magical moment came next, when the students lifted the clay mould to reveal the plants in their plaster incarnation.

The students were inspired by the artist Rachel Dein who captures the perfect imperfection of the natural world, its rhythms and its density which evokes an enchanted fairyland. 

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The Great BHM Treasure Hunt  

The Great BHM Treasure Hunt  was about celebrating countless amazing artists from different ethnic backgrounds across the world and remembering their struggles. Our BHM treasure hunt touched on notable artists like Kadir Nelson, The Singh Twins, Barbara Walker and many more; all while providing students an opportunity to have fun exploring.

This hunt has, crucially, allowed us to better understand Martin Luther King’s impactful quote: “We may have all come on different ships, but we’re in the same boat now”.