This morning we were given such a wonderful welcome at Little Flower School for the Deaf and Blind. We were guests of honor at their morning prayer and were presented with a rose and a handmade card. We then invited to sit in and observe one of the classes. We were enthralled by the little ones excitement and enthusiasm in the conversations between all of the children and the member of staff. No sign language at all is used at Little Flower their method of teaching is to ask all students to lip read and talk preparing them to be integrated into mainstream schools. We saw students producing wonderful drawings, paintings, needlework and decorative work in one of their art classes.
Loyola College
Our last visit at Loyola College started off with a tour of their impressive library. We then met with staff from the Visual Communication department and were shown some samples of student work. Loyola College are also eager to get their students involved with the project and also hope to extend this further into the community as part of their outreach work.
We would like to thank all of the staff and students from all the colleges and schools we have had the pleasure of meeting during our visit in Chennai. Your dedication is outstanding and we look forward to see all of the entries in the sketchbooks and hope to see the project tour from Chennai to Portsmouth and Winston Salem.
A very special thanks to Asha and Bhuvaneswari from the British Council for all their help and support during our week.
For more images during our week visit please visit the gallery page.
As we arrived at the school we were met by the principal and presented with beautiful flowered garlands and lots of smiles. We were guests of honor at their morning prayer, the children chanted and the head girl made a wonderful speech about our collaborative project and how they were looking forward to ‘leaving their mark’ for the visual libraries project.
We were escorted around the school by staff and students and shown a wonderful selection of creative work including, art projects, creative writing, poetry and a presentation on the history of the Ice House in Chennai. On leaving the school we were presented with a plaque to remember our visit by.
Padma Seshadri Bala Bhavan KK Nagar (High School)
A warm welcome was given to us when we arrived by the staff who will be involved with the project. We met in the principal in her office along with other staff members to discuss the initiative and explain in greater detail our concept which included showing examples of sketchbooks from Portsmouth. We were also lucky enough to be joined by two students who were being asked to write an article about Visual Libraries for their school magazine. The visit finished with an impressive tour of the school which included the games facilities, swimming pool, language laboratories, dance studio and library.
Ethiraj College
Our last visit of the day began with us meeting the principal of the college. We were asked to present the project to a large group of students who seemed very enthusiastic and spent time looking at the sketchbooks and the resource books that we use in our workshops. We hope these students will act as ambassadors and disseminate the project to other students. We were also taken to see their impressive library and visual communication staff allowed us to view work including illustration, photography and design produced by students of the college.
We felt especially lucky to have been invited to attend the Padma Seshadri Bala Bhavan Senior Secondary Schools 53rd Anniversary Celebrations at Kamaraj Memorial Hall. It was a spectacular event, firstly in the achievements shown by the students of these schools. We were particularly proud when our collaborative project was mentioned. The celebrations of the various stories of South India through music, dance and narrative was exceptional. The colours, vibrancy and positivity displayed lifted our spirits. It was a privilege to have attended this event and we would like to offer a warm thank you to all of those involved in this remarkable showcase and celebration.
On Monday we met with staff from Loyola College, Little Flower School for the Deaf, Padma Seshadri Bala Bhavan, KK Nagar (High School), Hindu Senior Secondary School and Ethiraj College. The British Council kindly hosted the workshop and provided a wonderful lunch for us. We discussed the project in detail and asked for feedback on how we could make the Visual Libraries project work in Chennai.
On Tuesday we then ran a workshop to students from the schools and colleges.It was a hive of activity and we were bowled over by the level of enthusiasm. Below are pictures from the workshop and the ‘image washing line’ that was used to show the work produced. What was exciting was the mix of ages of the student ambassadors that attended the workshop. We are really looking forward to visiting all of the institutions in the next two days especially the Padma Seshadri Bala Bhavan Senior Secondary Group of Schools 53rd anniversary celebrations ‘A Salute to the South’.
From our recent visit to Forsyth County Library in Winston Salem we decided to use their wonderful idea for book inserts. Maureen is pictured here sticking them into the sketchbooks we bought from Play Clan. These sketchbooks will be used in the workshops at the British Council this week and handed out to schools and colleges.
The Play Clan is a design agency in Delhi who are multi-talented and have numerous products for sale around India. Over the past couple of months we have been in communication with them and they have provided a large amount of sketchbooks at educational prices for us. The sketchbooks are wonderful and the designs on the front depict a wide range of amazing colours and scenes from around India.
We will be handing these sketchbooks out to schools and colleges over the next week and the British Council will store these and facilitate the archiving for members of the public to sign the books out.
After months of emails and a tele-conference we finally met with the wonderful Bhuvaneswari and Asha at The British Council in Chennai. We discussed the schedule for the week ahead and brought them up to date with the project in the UK and our trip to Forsyth County Library in Winston Salem.
The British Council in Chennai has a vast library and is open to the public 6 days a week.
It was a long flight but we landed safely in the early hours of Saturday morning with our workshop materials in tow. We are now looking forward to an action packed week ahead.
Our bags are packed and we are ready to start our next set of workshops in Chennai, India. We have an action packed week ahead working with The British Council and discussing the project with local schools and colleges.
Loyola College, Little Flower School for the Deaf, Padma Seshadri Bala Bhavan, KK Nagar (High School), Hindu Senior Secondary School and Ethiraj College will be involved in a series of workshops run at The British Council offices.
We are very excited to be taking this project to India and look forward to meeting everyone and progressing ways that Chennai can leave their mark in the books.
Dr Maureen O’Neill, staff member of the School of Art Design and Media and Claire Sambrook, staff member of the School of Creative Technology at the University of Portsmouth undertook a research visit to the USA. This was to build relationships and link with new members of The Visual Libraries Project which was initiated by them in the Portsmouth City Library. The staff visited Forsyth County Public Library, Wake Forest University, met and interviewed Steve Emig a contributor to the project and conducted an interview about the project for the Winston Salem Journal at Urban Artware Art Gallery. They were also invited to visited the studio of international artist Clark Whittington.
Forsyth County Public library
Maureen O’Neill and Claire Sambrook met with Candace Brennan the reference librarian who discovered the Visual Libraries project online. They were invited to the public library to view and photograph the sketchbooks that the library are offering to their patrons. They gave two presentation in the library auditorium about the project and then ran two workshops, the first for children and parents and another attended by library staff, management and adults. Staff were introduced to other staff members and taken on a tour of the library provision. A meeting was held to discuss extensions, outcomes and the possibility of a touring exhibition. The project has been very successful and Forsyth County Library has been put forward for an award for The Visual Libraries: leave your mark project.
Wake Forest University
Maureen and Claire were invited to present the project to librarians, staff and students in the rare books room at the Z Smith Reynolds Library, Wake Forest University. This is a private, coeducational university in the U.S. state of North Carolina, founded in 1834. Their presentation covered:
Aims and anticipated outcomes of the project
Organisation and structure
Workshops
Ways of creating in the sketchbooks
The thematic approach used at Portsmouth
Library systems and resources used in the UK
Where the project currently stands
Promotion and dissemination stratagies
This was accompanied with images, videos and website demonstrations of other research projects produced by the staff from Portsmouth. Staff from Wake forest University Library were then invited to “leave their mark “ in sketchbooks and on paper. These will aggregate towards the project. The staff were given a tour of the library facility, Start, the student art gallery, historic grounds and buildings of the university and the studio of Craig Fansler, Preservation Librarian at Z. Smith Reynolds Library
Urban Artware Art Gallery, 207 W 6th Street, Winston-Salem, NC
This gallery represents over 100 local and regional artists of various media including: painting, sculpture, pottery, turned wood, glass, fiber, and metalwork. It is also home to SEED artist collective. This superb gallery was used for two meetings whilst the staff were in Winston Salem. They interviewed and videoed a contributor, Steve Emig, about his experience of the project. They asked how he had discovered and why he had started to draw in the sketchbooks, what he got from the project and what he felt were its strengths? This interview will be used to contribute to the documentary that is being made of the project and will be placed online. The staff were later interviewed by a journalist from the Winston Salem Journal about the project. A photographer was sent to Wake Forest University presentation and the article was published on Saturday, July 31st.
Clark Whittington Studio
Maureen O’Neill, Claire Sambrook and Candace Brennen were invited to visit Clark’s studio and talk with him about his work and outline the Visual Libraries Project to see if there could be any links between students at the university of Portsmouth and the project in Forsyth County Library. They were shown his studio, vending machines that were being renovated and the the art store. Whittington showed images of the most recent machine being installed at the Smithsonian Institution and explained how artists are able to place work in the machines. Visual Libraries Presentation
This is a wonderful quote from one of the participants of both workshops that we ran at Forsyth County Library, Mary Angela Douglas.
“I was a participant at the Forsyth County Public Library session (both morning and afternoon) and I just want to say deep thanks to the Library for hosting this and for the wonderful illuminating experience. It has changed my life, artistically and otherwise. Thank you Claire and Maureen! I don’t think it can be emphasized too much that this type of project has never happened before in the entire history of libraries, and the honor of Winston-Salem being chosen as the first city in the U.S. to participate is immeasurable. The idea of individuals world-wide posting their thoughts, comments, art-work and anything they want in sketchbooks that will be on the shelves in libraries and on exhibit from country to country is absolutely fantastic. Personally, it helped me so much to create something in the session with the little children. Below is a poem I wrote commemorating one little girl’s painting of a water-color rose. It also sums up my feeling about the Visual Libraries/visual image event and the city of Winston-Salem – as a 17 year resident.
Kudos to the Winston Salem Journal for covering it. Please continue to give wide-scale coverage to follow up events like this and all artistic events in our “City of the Arts”.
Thanks to Audra and Candace for organising this workshop at Wake Forest University. We were also lucky enough to get press coverage thanks to Candace. This is wonderful exposure for the project and for Forsyth County Library.
Click the image above for the full article or click here.
Yesterday we ran a couple of workshops at Forsyth County Library in Winston Salem. Many thanks to Audra, Candace and Nan who have been supporters of Visual Libraries from the start. The morning workshop was for children and the afternoon session for librarians and local artists. Thanks to all those who turned up to listen to our presentation and take part in leaving their mark.
Please check out the gallery section of this website to see more photos from the sessions.
Two sketchbooks have been started one called ‘Connections‘ to visually respond to all things that connect for example journeys, infrastructure, interaction between people. The other started as ‘Time Devils‘ as a reaction to the hellish journey but has now been re-themed ‘Packaged‘ to celebrate the wonderful selection of imagery, text and type reflected in everyday American printed ephemera.
After three hrs on the tarmac at Heathrow, one missed connection, two broken planes, seven hr delay, another one and half hours on the tarmac we take off in a storm like no other. Arrived in Greensboro found luggage, get taxi and arrive at hotel, tired 30 hours on but relieved.
See the Storm on video. It’s scary stuff and we flew right through it.
