Archive and Art; Engaging new young audiences with archive to inspire creativity and learning.

In 2019 I was invited by Dr.Debbie Challis to help plan and deliver the LSE festival content representing the LSE library Learning and Engagement team. Our focus was Walls and Disorder. Exploring the occurrence of protest and resistance that are generated by the presence or threat of building Walls. Our engagement was London based school children in Year 5. What followed was a deep dive into Walls of the past such as the Berlin wall and the fence at Greenham Common, current walls in Palestine and the threat of walls to come on the American southern boarder. Using the Library's archives of the protest camps at Greenham Common as a handling archive along with historical references to other sites; we co-delivered workshops in several schools and also a special workshop with patients at GOSH.

My installation for the LSE Festival 2019 was a series of walls that could be interacted with by members of the public through family workshops. Included in our room of Walls was a large wall built of cardboard bricks created from the school session; all expressing messages of protest or opinion of the year 5's who had explored the historical content with Dr Debbie and I. The Festival was busy and we had community composer Tom Cook with the attendees creating protest songs in the space to reflect the feelings in the room.

Roll forward 5 years and I have just finished my 5th LSE Festival working with the LSE Library team including Chelsea Collison Learning and Engagement officer and Maria Bell Learning Support Services manager. This years theme was Politics and Power. The Archive played a large roll again in the engagement of this years Year 5's from Christ Church C of E Primary School in Croydon. We added another new element to the project. A visit of the whole year group ( 60 children) to LSE Library to see behind the scenes in the actual archives and the very special Suffrage Banners as part of the Women's Library. I also challenged them to create the elements to a campaign banner ( groups of 8) in just the day session. I took all their ideas, art work, colour schemes, composition decisions and used them as my brief. The result is co-created printed banners showcasing their talents as designers as much as their passion for the campaigns they chose to highlight.

In the workshops we explored what was a Campaign? What is Protest? 'How can you use Art to communicate your message to large audiences?' What can we learn from the design of the suffrage banners in the Archives to inform Year 4 to design their own banners for 2024?

This years LSE Festival included a team of 16 pupils to present, share and deliver activities that showcased their project and the Protest Art they created. The public response was impressed with how confident the 10 year olds were in connecting what they had seen in the Archives to their own approaches to design and understanding of the power of protest.

I delivered a set of the 8 Banners to the school this week and the pride and enthusiasm for the process and the outcomes from both pupils and staff led me to share the importance of using cross curricular creativity to engage and inspire learning. Actually handling archive objects or visiting Museums and Libraries offer a special opportunity to start conversations and create art as a response. In reflection during our evaluations one pupil wrote;

'I would do another project like this again, because it let my creativity come loose'

I can't think of a better way of advocating for the partnership of archive and art.