Students and Pupils, Old and Young, All Enjoying 20-21

Last Thursday (4 December) was a busy one here at 20-21 Visual Arts Centre as we welcomed visitors from both St Luke's Primary School and North Lindsey College. 

The group from St Luke's came to look at Nick Sharratt's 'Pirates, Pants and Wellyphants' exhibition. The exhibition explores the colourful world of  internationally-renowned author and illustrator, Nick Sharratt, so it is excellent for school groups to explore not only art and design, but also literacy.

Visitors enjoying the Nick Sharratt dressing up box

The neoprene costumes in the exhibition, based on some of Nick's illustrations, proved to be really popular with both staff and pupils!

Whilst they were here, the St Luke's pupils also made use of our Activity Table. Using ideas from Nick Sharratt's lift-the-flaps books 'Fancy Dress Farmyard' and 'Fancy Dress Jungle', they designed their own fancy dress costume for a sheep, pig or chicken. 

Fancy Dress Jungle, Nick Sharratt

Photography students from North Lindsey College, meanwhile, came to look at Simon Longworth's photographs. Brought up in Winteron, Simon worked as an army photographer during a 6 month tour of Afghanistan, documenting army life from the dramatic to the mundane. 

Simon Longworth's exhibition

Although they came primarily for Simon's poignant photographs, the students just couldn't resist a quick snap of themselves in our Pirates, Pants and Wellyphants comic façade - and we don't blame them!

(Not the NLC students - they wouldn't let us ruin their street cred')

St Luke's joins the expanding list of schools that have visited or organised a visit to see Pirates, Pants and Wellyphants here at 20-21 Visual Arts Centre. Don't worry if your school haven't booked their visit yet, there is still time before the exhibition closes on 21 February. 
You can contact us to book a visit to any of our exhibitions for your school or college on 01724 297070, or email us at education.2021@northlincs.gov.uk.

TAKEOVER 20-21 2013

It's been that time of year again! The Children's Commissioner encourages the country to get involved in Takeover Day, an opportunity for children and young people to have their say on services and issues that affect them.

Here in North Lincolnshire, we like to step it up a few notches! The Participation Team for North Lincolnshire Council run Takeover for an entire week, meaning young people are able to take advantage of a truly engaging experience in companies, agencies and offices across the area.

You may remember last year, that 20-21 had some John Leggott College A Level students come in for a few days and take part in feedback sessions and helped us shape our offer for young people in the future. Click here for a write-up of last year's events.

The same opportunity was opened again this year, but with an offer developed around feedback from last year's event.

John Leggott's Art and Design Foundation students came along to have a review of their current practice, looking back at successful projects. To enrich the experience for the students, our Education Officer Hayley McPhun and Jo Smith were invited along to speak about their current practice, how they came to work in the arts and to help offer a professional critique of their work. Jo is a recent graduate who has had a huge amount of success achieving solo exhibitions and scholarships. Jo exhibited her critically acclaimed solo show "Two Brothers, Three Sisters, A Mouse and Some Unfortunate Birds" at 20-21 in 2013.

The students delivered a 10 minute presentation of their work, which was then critiqued by their peers and the professional arts workers. We saw some truly impressive pieces and were introduced to some new methods of working.

North Lindsey College Art and Design students also came along for a critique of their work. We discussed their hopes for future education choices and where they would like to go to university. North Lindsey had our Audience Engagement Officer, Joy Buckley and dressmaker and designer Lucy Markham to provide a professional arts perspective of the work they were seeing. North Lindsey students ranged from across the entire art and design cohort, meaning there was a vast variety of working styles and interests, which was a great thing to see.

Both college groups fed back that they had a really interesting experience and that the day's events were greatly appreciative of some professional feedback about their current practice. John Leggot also run a blog, where they've spoken about their experience and featured some images of our input into Takeover Week. Take a look at what they say, by clicking here.

To find out more about how 20-21 can accommodate your college students, please don't hesitate to contact us on 01724 297070 or email education.2021@northlincs.gov.uk

TAKEOVER 20-21

It's TAKEOVER DAY today! A day where children and young people across the country get to have their say on issues and services that affect them and their future.

Here, in North Lincolnshire we're lucky enough to have Takeover run as a week long event, for young people to get the maximum experience out of the opportunity.

20-21 were really keen to be involved in such an exciting week, so asked art students from John Leggott College and North Lindsey College, to come along to our centre to help us think of new ways to bring young people into the centre, and encourage students to use our facilities in their studies.

Biffy and Aiden, wrote a report about the sorts of things they got up to and what they think to 20-21. Below, is their article and a few photos taken during their time here:

During takeover week we have had discussions about the progress of 2021 Visual Arts Centre and how it could be improved to accommodate for teenagers. The ideas that we came up with were student open, competitions/fundraisers for charity, photography and fashion exhibitions and more publicised workshops.

On the first day we discussed the ideas above and how we would improve the amount of visitors to the centre. A variety of problems such as publicity of the centre and its location mean that the general public are unaware of its presence. The need for convenience means that the centre is not an ideal place for people to congregate and it is hidden by the library. We suggested that ‘posts’ could be placed in front of the library and at the bus station in order to draw attention to what the centre has on offer.



First impressions of 20-21

Why people maybe don't come to the gallery

An idea to drive forward?

Ideas for targeting young people

Activities and events suitable for young people

Pros and cons

 The second day was more practical as we worked in a team to create a Christmas tree out of cardboard and general craft materials.

Tomorrow we plan to present our findings in ‘The Great Debate’ to other young people. We would like to inform people of our opinions that will hopefully make the 2021 Centre more successful as it is an important part of our community. Offering expressive freedom to the general public, from children to adults 2021 enables community integration but also the ability to explore thoughts and ideas.

The atmosphere at 2021 is relaxed and professional which allows for comfortable viewing of exhibitions (of contemporary artists), which are refreshed every few months to maintain public intrigue/interest.

The students Christmas tree is on loan to the stand at Great Debate, before coming back to 20-21 to be included in our Winter Wonderland exhibition, alongside some prestigious local artists.

The staff at 20-21 really value the input of our group of Takeover students, and were suitably impressed with some of their creative talent! We are looking to develop a few of the key points raised during their time with us. If you are interested in being a part of the student focus group, or have any ideas for the name of the group, please get in touch with our Education Officer, Hayley McPhun: hayley.mcphun@northlincs.gov.uk