annual report - room 13 hareclive

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Room 13 Hareclive is an independent artists’ studio run by

children, for children.

The studio employs a professional artist in residence who helps facilitate the work of younger artists, providing an exchange of ideas, skills and experience across the ages. Children can go to the studio to draw, paint, collage, sculpt, take photographs, make films, research, read and work on the computer. In Room 13, they are free to follow their own ideas and work on their own

creative projects.

Room 13 is democratically run by the young people that use it. Every year a team of students aged 9 – 11 is elected onto the management committee.

Working as equal team members alongside adults, they make decisions about the studio, run a shop, raise their own funds for materials, sign all cheques, pay

the artist’s salary and develop Room 13 and its work beyond the studio.

Room 13 has an open door policy to all children. Students can come to the studio during lunch and break times. They can also come during class time, as long as they negotiate time out with their teacher and ensure all classwork is

up to date.

Together, all these things mean that in Room 13 children are given the freedom and space to be creative, the incentive to be responsible and to work hard, and the opportunity to learn about running a project and a business.

Room 13 Hareclive is based within the grounds of Hareclive Academy

(Primary) in Hartcliffe, south Bristol. We set up in 2003 and are the flagship Room 13 project for England.

www.room13hareclive.org.uk

Room 13 Hareclive is proud to be part of the Room 13 International Studio Network.

www.room13international.org

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2011 & 2012

Each year the studio grows in strength, building on the good work of the year before.

And each year the studio is different.

A big thank you to all the children in the Management Team as well as many other children that visit Room 13, all of whom work together with dedication, care and enthusiasm:

Lauren Lloyd Ben Gardiner

Courtney Radford Corie Hayward

Shannon Haddow Reece Hicks Chloe Siddle

Connor Bevan Chloe Harrison Kieran Watts

Courtney Hendy Ryan Blackmore

Elise Takle George Hughes Curtis Pearce Leah Smith

Joe Edwards Mollie Mead

Kyle Williams Emma Lakey Jack Bailey

Ashleigh Foskett Oliver Peacock

Rhiannon Johnson Jack Toogood

Sacha Balmond Jack Ah -Tow Alayna Hewer

The passion of all the Room 13ers continues to keep the studio alive.

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Extract from Managing Director’s Report 2011/12 Hi my name is Lauren and I am Managing Director of Room 13 Hareclive 2012. I am also a dedicated artist who works in Room 13 almost every day it is open. Being an MD is a fun but challenging job because you are responsible for making sure the studio is running smoothly. I always step in when others need help, mainly the treasurer and the shopkeeper. I meet visitors and I am one of Room 13’s main communicators. This past year I have really grown up and it has been the most hard-‐working year in my life. I’m very pleased to meet so many different visitors from various countries and professions. I thank Shani and Paul and the Management Team for choosing me to be in the new Management Team. The highlight of this year has to be making the table (To the Table… see p5) and working with others. Also working on my canvasses has changed my feelings towards art. I feel that the studio has moved with me from Year 1 to Year 6 and made good progress each year. If I didn’t have Room 13 in the past year, in the future my decisions wouldn’t be the same as what they would have been without Room 13. Lauren Lloyd (12) Managing Director

Managing Director’s Report 2012/13 We have had two very strong Management Teams over the past couple of years. I have been very lucky to have had positions in both of them. Each year we continue to have lots of children applying to get a job in Room 13 and each year the elected children work hard to keep the studio running. The highlights for me have been the arty parties. This is when the old team hand over their jobs to the new team. This is a symbol of passing something precious and important over to the next generation to be taken care of… We usually have cake and fruit to celebrate this special occasion. The team’s focus has been on arts and business, raising awareness and money for the studio. As MD I made presentations at Blackrock in London and The Funding Network in Bristol. As a studio we have done lots and lots of things. We have had Reflection Weeks, a reunion for the Room 13ers that have moved up to secondary school... The list goes on so please read our action packed annual report. We hope you enjoy it. Courtney Radford (11) Managing Director

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Artist Directors’ Report 2011/2012 Throughout 2011/2012 we as artists educators have been privileged to be part of the fabric of this unique young people’s project for the ninth year, as it continues to follow its own values: taking risks, nurturing talent, doing things differently, challenging pre-‐conceptions, generating its own energy and enthusiasms and working as a collective with open minds and generous spirits. As a collective of artists and thinkers young and old we have seized opportunities that you will read about here (Nowhereisland, Spike Island Studios, TBWA/ Portraits…) to share our values with the community in Bristol, the UK and the world. Seeing the Management Team and young artists negotiate new situations, projects and people – sharing ideas and experiences in environments where they listen and are listened to as equals -‐ have made these such exciting years for us. As artists, we are now both committed to working in socially engaged artistic collaborations with the young people of Hartcliffe and Withywood. The young artists’ directness (verbal and aesthetic), spontaneity (of thought and action) and their expansive imaginations are something that we have witnessed and absorbed over the years. We have gradually begun to realign ourselves with some of these qualities that the young people possess both intuitively and from working in dynamic, intense studio situations. It’s wonderful to be part of the building legacy that is Room 13. But in truth, the thing that matters most to us is that it should continue to do bigger and braver things, and that it should be an essential part of children’s educational and cultural life for many years to come. Shani Ali & Paul Bradley Freelance Artist Educators

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Welcome to Room 13 Hareclive’s Annual Report 2011/12 Written collaboratively by children and adults.

We have lots to tell you. Artworks and Projects ‘To The Table…’ Our high-‐light of 2012. A collaborative project between Room 13 Hareclive and USA based artist Ilene Berman, and Bristol’s Calling The Shots. Through the ideas, dialogue, inspiration and resourcefulness of this project, we created our own Round Table for the studio and filmed the process. Our film won us a place as resident thinkers for the national Nowhereisland Cultural Olympiad Project where we joined the likes of Yoko Ono, Tim Smit and Vidal Sassoon, sharing our ideas with the world. When Nowhereisland came to Bristol, a group of us went to join the welcoming procession. Our table lives on and is now central to studio life. It’s used for every meeting and gathering of artists, thinkers and other professionals, working together. It has become an important symbol of what we stand for: dialogue and equality. This project could not have happened without Ilene and Calling the Shots collaborating for free, giving their time and resources to the studio, and we thank them very much. Watch our film on http://nowhereisland.org/resident-‐thinkers/#!/resident-‐thinkers/37/ Also in 2011/12… We showcased artworks in the city centre at the Arnolfini Book shop, Jamaica Street Artists’ open studios, and At Bristol, where the John James Bristol Foundation invited us to exhibit our large canvasses at their 50th anniversary event. The Foundation also kindly gave us a blank Gorilla (sculpture) to design – part of Bristol Zoo’s Gorillas project -‐ which now lives happily at Hartcliffe Library near us. Locally in Hartcliffe and Withywood we took part in The View, the area’s first ever arts trail, and exhibited artworks alongside GCSE students at Bridge Learning Campus, one of our local feeder secondary schools. Beyond Bristol, we collaborated with Room 13 Old Ford, London, on their Leaf Project and submitted ideas to BlackRock’s Olympic T-‐shirt design competition, winning two real medals. Room 13 at Spike Island Studios!… An exciting development at the end of 2012: having been awarded a temporary Room 13 studio space at Spike Island, Shani and Paul began to trial it for Room 13ers, bringing across young artists from our local secondary schools to work in a city studio, alongside other artists, towards an Open Studio exhibition in 2013. See page 12 and watch this space! After learning about the strength of Hareclive’s Room 13, in June 2012 I traveled from North Carolina to Bristol. As a professor of art education at Appalachian State University I wanted to learn why this Room 13 was such a success. Immediately, I was captivated by the quality of the artwork, the independence, and the responsible behavior of the children. What was surprising, too, was the care the children expressed for each other. I anticipated energetic artmaking. After all, the action of experimenting with assorted media, creating new assemblages, and putting different ideas together is how children explore self. But I was intrigued with the amount of collaborative art making – where ideas of another expand a child’s ideas. Risk taking, realizing the possible from the impossible, critical thinking, in essence, the encounter with a unique other (a friend) is a “threshold for inevitable change” (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987, p. 484). This shared felt experience is ethics or how we create community. In other words Room 13 offers pleasurable encounters for world building. Professor Vicky Grube, Art Education, Appalachian State University, USA

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I work as a Dealer for BlackRock in London, one of the world's largest asset management companies, which manages the pensions and investments of key people such as teachers, firemen as well as companies and central banks. My first experience of Room 13 was through a day visit to the Hareclive studio on a late winter day in 2008, and I was so impressed and moved by what I encountered that day and what I learnt myself, that I left with the burning question of how can I help to grow this network so that more children and adults can experience and gain the benefit of Room 13? Within a few weeks, following my proposal to the Charitable trust, BlackRock funded a pilot Room 13 studio in London in 2008 and another in 2009, which are now both established studios and BlackRock continues to help by hosting annual Room 13 exhibition/ sales events (including silent auctions), giving spare stationery/materials from office moves and on going staff volunteering as creative or business mentors. We are looking into Room 13 running a workshop at BlackRock as part of a team building/staff networking event and the young artists are working on an Art Loan proposal to BlackRock. Room 13 has given me new opportunities, experiences and challenges and reminded me that you never stop learning and you can learn from anyone of any age, if you just keep your mind open and free, which is what happens in Room 13. Benaifer Patell, Dealer for BlackRock, London Multi-‐national Investment Corporation

Art and Business Back in 2010 we decided to try and develop the enterprise side of Room 13. In the studio, this has worked really well. We run a studio stationary shop where we order everything from a catalogue and sell it at a very small profit. The shop has really thrived and grown in this time, with big queues of children wanting to buy things. We have also created and taken opportunities to promote and sell our merchandise, like our Christmas cards and badges, at the school Christmas fair; a local Craft fair; a Room 13 fair hosted by BlackRock, London; and at Spike Island Open studios, Bristol. We have tested a new and interesting way to generate income with the advertising agency TBWA: they email us employee portrait photographs from all over the world and we creatively customise them! Jack, Sam and Paul particularly took on this challenge which tested their creative and imaginative skills. All were pleased with the visual outcomes and we would like to work with other organisation on this idea.

Shop Keeper’s Report I am proud to be part of the team that has helped make money for our studio. This year we have done better than ever before. In the shop we have made Room 13 Hareclive history. We took £1034, making a profit of £481. As part of the enterprise and sales team, I have also had the opportunity to organise and sell Christmas cards. We sold our cards locally and internationally taking £866 and making a profit of £469. It felt really good to take this money to the bank. I hope next year the team will do better. Curtis Pearce (11) Shop Manager

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Sharing: In the Studio Our studio is increasingly becoming a hub where people of different ages (from 5 upwards), backgrounds and professions meet and exchange ideas and skills. We think this is unique, valuable and important and we want it to keep growing. In 2011 and 2012 we had a steady stream of visitors wanting to experience Room 13 in depth. Some of these were from within education, like local parent and UWE student Faith Murembezi and Professor of Art Education Vicky Grube from the USA, both of whom were conducting research into Room 13’s approach. Some were teachers, like Suzanne Windsor-‐Liscombe from Confederation Park Elementary in Canada. We also worked with our two local secondary schools, welcoming Vice Principal, Nick Short, Rob Townley, Curriculum Leader for Art, and a group of 6th formers from Merchants’ Academy, as well as other young people wanting work experience; and Abigail Bush, Head of Art, at Bridge Learning Campus. Some were artists like Sarah Rhys, Tom Astley and Annabelle Craven Jones (Bristol) and Ilene Berman (USA), wanting to experience Room 13 and exchange skills. And some were business people, funders and other professionals who either support us, work with us or are interested in us. To name a few: Robert Bourns, Senior Partner, TLT Solicitors; Amanda Colbourne, RIO; Michael Prior, Situations; Richard Pendlebury, Emmaus Bristol; Jerry Cowhig, Spike Island; Lucy Pope, At Bristol; Joan Johnson and Julia Norton, John James Bristol Foundation; Rowan and Jerry Suenson-‐Taylor, the Linnet Trust; Richard Morris and Nick Hood, the Merchant Venturers; Emma Parker, our book keeper; Alice Meason, Quartet Community Foundation; and The Very Revd Dr David Hoyle, Dean of Bristol Cathedral. We shared with all of these people in different ways.

It was very interesting to sit in on your meeting and see how you make decisions. I thought you chaired the meeting very well, and made sure everybody was able to talk and make suggestions. It was also brilliant to see how everybody listened to the person speaking and didn’t try and interrupt. But we were even more amazed by what we saw in the lunch break. Room 13 is quite a small space and when so many children turned up I wondered how there could possibly be room for everyone. But there were no arguments or squabbles, everyone made room for each other, big or small, and set about making their artworks with purpose and determination. You may think this is normal. But it isn’t. You should all congratulate yourselves on how you all co-‐operate, work together and help each other make exciting artworks. Jerry Suenson-‐Taylor, The Linnet Trust

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Sharing: Outside the Studio We have many requests and opportunities to share our expertise and learning outside of the Room 13 studio. This creates chances for young people to visit new places, have new experiences, meet other professionals and gain new skills. Meanwhile others get to learn about what we do and in some cases, we can generate some much needed income for the studio. In 2011/12 we:

• visited BlackRock’s offices in the heart of the City of London. Young people spoke in front of an audience of business people, children and teachers from other Room 13’s;

• visited Spike Island in Bristol where

we ran workshops for their Open Studio event and made a presentation at their Christmas event;

• went over the suspension bridge to

the Lord Mayor’s residence in Clifton, where we presented to Bristol’s Funding Network: people across the city who want to support interesting projects that make a difference. Lauren, Courtney and Kyle gave a timed presentation and raised £4021!

We also worked with different groups at our studio: we ran art development sessions for a group of North Bristol schools and for Fouracres Primary in Hartcliffe; we ran an INSET session for Hareclive Academy staff; and made presentations in whole school assemblies. If you are interested in working with Room 13 and want to find out more about what we can offer please go to: www.room13hareclive.org.uk/schools

Presenting at BlackRock in London 2012

Room 13 Workshop at Spike Island Open Studios

The Funding Network, Bristol 2012

INSET session for Hareclive Academy staff

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One key principle is trust. Trusting children to be able to deal

with the day-‐to-‐day practicalities of keeping an art-‐studio

well-‐stocked, tidy, safe and functioning extends the boundaries

usually set within maintained education for what children are

deemed able to do. Writing cheques and having oversight of a

bank-‐account with real money in it, and dealing with the real-‐

world business-‐elements of a studio which makes commodities

and sells them, is an education in itself for children. A real

business depends on the decisions made, and this narrowing of

the gap between 'school' and 'life' dramatically enhances and

gives point to the educational experience. Trusting children to

be using their time in the studio productively (even if it appears

on the surface that this is not what is happening sometimes)

makes for new insights into the way children think for

themselves and go about the sustained work of creation.

Room 13 hands over a great deal of decision-‐making at every

level to children, and this in itself departs dramatically from

the norm in maintained schools, and has corresponding

educational benefits.

Dr Patrick Yarker, School of Education and Life Long Learning, University of East Anglia

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Room 13 Hareclive Development Room 13 Hareclive is always developing and from one view point, it is never linear. It feels more like a fizzing, popping firework with sparks going out in every direction – through every conversation, interaction, relationship and opportunity that comes to the studio – and you never quite know where they will land or what they will set alight. At the same time, all work in the studio develops a strong, central line of inquiry, taken forward by artists and thinkers young and old, which constantly raises important and sometimes challenging questions for society about children and their potential: how do we value children’s ideas, art, voices? How do children best learn? What might children be capable of if given the space, support and opportunities? All of this development work is in the DNA of Room 13 and, after six years, it’s what still makes the studio so exciting and interesting to work with. On top of all this work, there are two key important areas of development which we have worked hard on together over 2011/12 and we report on here. If you can help, we’d love to hear from you. Ingrid Skeels, Freelance Development Worker

Working With Older Room 13ers A key question has long been: what happens when children leave Room 13 at the end of Year 6, particularly for those who find school difficult? How can we make sure that the benefits of Room 13 continue? With so many children we see, the sense of possibility, potential, aspiration and engagement with education that we witness in Room 13 does not last. We want to help change this. During 2011/12, we experimented with various ways to keep the link with Room 13ers who have left, including: trial holiday, after-‐school and reunion sessions at the studio; offering work placements to older Room 13ers; developing better links with our two local secondary schools, Bridge Learning Campus and Merchants’ Academy; and linking into existing wider work around transition. Thanks to The Network for Social Change for helping to make all this possible.

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Our findings were that we need to:

• focus our work with older Room 13ers around the period of transition from primary to secondary schools. This is when many switch off, where they are most vulnerable, and where we can have the most impact;

• find a way to work with older Room 13ers outside the studio as children do not want to come back and work in their old primary school;

• work with the children who really need it during the school day, as this is the only way we can ensure that we reach them.

Towards the end of 2012, the temporary Room 13 studio space at Spike Island offered us a great opportunity. We approached both secondary schools to see how we could link with them to make best use of it. The result was a project involving 10 young people from Year 7, working in the new city centre studio space every Thursday afternoon for 12 weeks, towards an Open Studios Exhibition in May 2013, attended by thousands of people across Bristol. Together, this enabled students to step away from what they found difficult with school and to step into collaboration, creativity, ideas, responsibility, aspiration and a sense of positive action and achievement. We now want to continue and build on this important work, helping older Room 13ers in our local school community and extracting bigger learning implications for children everywhere. Thanks to Bristol City Council Creative Seed Fund and the Portishead Nautical Trust for enabling this pilot project.

Sustainability Room 13 Hareclive runs on a very modest budget and lots of work ‘in kind’ from us and others who help us. As for many projects in this climate, 2011/12 have been challenging times funding wise, and we have been busy. Firstly, we’ve trialled bringing in more money through enterprise in the studio, and now generate a very small but important part of our income this way (see p6 and 8). Secondly, good grant funding – large and small -‐ will always be important for Room 13, and we have worked hard to win this. The on-‐going support of Arts Council England is invaluable to us, both financially and for what it says about our work in the arts world and within education. And support from the John James Bristol Foundation has been a huge help, particularly when we needed more stability so we could better address our funding needs. We thank both, as well as the smaller Trusts, grant funders and individuals who have helped us in 2011/12. We hope very much we can keep your support. Finally, with the help of some of our key supporters, we are developing The Friends of Room 13 which will have its own separate registered charity and Board, responsible purely for fundraising. We hope to grow a network of people across Bristol and beyond who might help to support what we do – both with children in Hartcliffe and as a beacon project within the arts and education – by making a regular donation. Read more on page 14 and help us if you can. We would like to thank our new Board for all their help.

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Room 13 starred at Bristol Cathedral on Saturday 26th November 2011 when the Dean sang our praises in front of an audience of 350 people at the 25 years celebration of Quartet Community Foundation. Here’s an extract from his sermon:

Let me tell you about a different project with young people. Two weeks ago I went to Room 13 at Hareclive. In the middle of a busy lunchtime, in a school in Hartcliffe, I walked through the canteen, through a small playground and into Room 13, an arts studio full (and I mean absolutely full) of very small artists. […] Room 13 is just bubbling with fun and, wonderfully, with earnest purpose. This is an arts studio that has artists in residence and that has children excelling as artists, discovering things about art and, probably more importantly, communicating things about themselves and each other that leave you humbled. It is also run by the children themselves, a management committee of children who gave me one of the best induction meetings I have ever attended. They will tell you that Room 13 helps them manage their anger, concentrate, achieve the unexpected and more and it is wonderful for all that. [...] In this driven, achieving, competitive city, where we put pauper girls to work for ten and half hours a day, here are people saying, ‘paint pictures, imagine, don’t do what I say, do what you would like to do’. Quartet and others support that work. The Very Revd Dr David Hoyle, MA, Dean of Bristol Cathedral

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HOW YOU CAN SUPPORT US

Are you interested in:

• The important work we do with children and young people in Hartcliffe?

• Our artists’ studio, and what we – as a collective of artists – bring to the arts world?

• The value of our work to Education?

• Our Room 13 approach?

If yes, please consider investing in or helping our studio, its work and the future of all Room 13ers. The Friends of Room 13 Hareclive is a network of people across Bristol and the world who believe in what we do and want to see it continue. You can help by investing a small amount each month, or by making a donation. It costs £2.50 a week, £10 a month, for one child to use the studio. Anything you can invest will make a huge difference to us. We spend wisely. Or you can support us with practical help such as arts materials or stationery. Or maybe you have other ideas! Your help is greatly appreciated. In return, we will keep you up to date with Room 13 Hareclive and what we do and achieve with your support. Long live Room 13 Hareclive! See more information about The Friends of Room 13 on our website: www.room13hareclive.org.uk/helproom13hareclive

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Room 13 Hareclive: Users’ Statistics In 2011/12, Room 13 was open three days a week, Monday to Wednesday, term times only. Of the 293 children eligible to come from Years 1 – 6, 273 children accessed the studio at some point, with 23 from higher school years. Users were divided fairly equally between school years and girls and boys. There were 6957 actual child visits to Room 13 and we have analysed those sessions as follows:

56%

44%

By gender Female Male

52% 48%

By year group Other years Year 5 and 6

35%

40%

25%

By time in school Morning Break Lunchtime During Class Time

Two interesting comparisons with 2009/10: Firstly, more boys are using the studio and working with Paul, thanks to a comic club that grew out of an interest in video games, horror and science fiction movies and animations. Secondly, the popularity and use of Room 13 has increased massively! We have delivered nearly 1000 more child sessions, even though our studio has only been able to open for three days a week, not four. And still on many days we have queues of children wanting to come in. Managing this increase has required more volunteer time from the artists in residence at busy times. We now need to increase the capacity of Room 13 in the future so that we are properly resourced to meet this need.

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Thank you to all the artists, educators, collaborators, visitors, volunteers, students and parents who generously give their time, money and much more to promote and support the work of our studio. Room 13 continues to give us real life experiences and we thank everyone who has helped us on our way. We particularly want to thank the following for their help in 2011/12:

Shani Ali Paul Bradley Ingrid Skeels Hareclive Academy Mike Colcombe Mrs Claxton Mrs Conway Mr Laken Mr Jackson Mrs De Lancey Mr Lewis Nicola Venus Nic Hill Michelle Barton Keith Major Robert Bourns Amanda Colbourne Tim Sully Patrick Yarker Sue Wight Richard Pendlebury Helen Wilde Lucy Pope Brian Hall Matt little Tim Blanc Donna Baber Andy Kybert Antalis McNaughton Andrew Hood Marie-Anne McQuay Helen Legg Room 13 International Claire Gibb Calling the Shots Jeremy Routledge Benaifer Patell Professor Vick Grube Ilene Berman Merchants’ Academy Bridge Learning Campus Our patron Richard Long

The Linnet Trust

The Basil Brown Trust

Bernays Charitable Trust

Greyfriars Trust

The Cowslip Green Charity

Lalonde Trust

Nani Huyu Charitable Trust

Bristol City Council Creative Seed Fund

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Contact Room 13 Room 13 Hareclive Hareclive Academy Moxham Drive Hartcliffe Bristol BS13 OHP [email protected] www.room13hareclive.org.uk

annual report - room 13 hareclive

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