Open School East (OSE) is an alternative space for artistic learning recently relocated from East London to Margate in Kent. OSE 2017 associates artists will take over the William Morris Gallery (and garden) for a day-long series of public workshops.

Create London has invited the OSE 2017 associates to take over the William Morris Gallery and garden for a day-long series of public workshops, as part of the Be Magnificent: Walthamstow School of Art 1957-1967 exhibition.

Taking inspiration from primary school shenanigans, the event will incorporate a tongue-in-cheek interpretation of the school day schedule – featuring an assembly, classroom crafts and a school play.

Timetable

12:00 – 1:00pm : School Assembly

A number of speakers will provide presentations and performative lectures, within a structure mimicking the familiar school assembly. We will seek to explore a variety of perspective in relation to alternative forms of art education.

Emma Gibson – The Art of Assembly: Drawing a Crowd

Shiri Shalmy – Antiuniversity : Self Organised Education

Eve Chabanon – Contexts for Gathering

Followed by an open discussion.

1:00 – 2:00pm : Lunch Time

2:00 – 4:00pm : Classroom Crafts

The Classroom Crafts workshop will offer participants the chance to create costumes, props and a set for a future ‘school play’. We will utilise kids crafts and take inspiration from the botanics of Morris’s prints, his socialist publications and the politics of plants.

4:00 – 5:00pm : School Play / Bunking Off

Embracing the awkward performativity of the school play and the defiant deviance of bunking off, we will enact a ‘school play’ in the grounds of the William Morris building. We will animate the costumes, props and a set created during the previous workshop.