Gold Arts Awards
On Saturday 18 April three Eastbourne College pupils, Michelle Chin, Tom Page and Marianne Smith were awarded their Gold Arts Awards.
Arts Award supports young people to develop as artists and arts leaders. The College introduced Arts Awards at Gold level in September 2014 working with gifted and talented Year 13 pupils. The programme develops their creativity, leadership and communication skills. Through working towards an award they learn to work independently, helping them to prepare for further education and future employment.
Arts Award motivates and celebrates young people’s artistic achievements. They can achieve an award through any arts, media or cultural activity, developing knowledge and understanding of their chosen art forms.
Here is a snapshot of their projects:
Michelle Chin staged an exhibition to illustrate the cultural diversity of China through photograph of hands and recorded interviews with the local people. As an aspiring artist, she hopes to develop the content of her work through capturing and presenting social and political issues from an alternative perspective.
Michelle commented, “For my Gold Arts Award, I worked with artist Mark Hewitt to extend my reportage photography by adding spoken word and sound. Inspired by Brandon Stanton’s Humans of New York, I have interviewed some of my subjects about their lives and their views. I chose to photograph hands instead of faces because I think that they reveal more about the person. In our society our appearances can be easily changed with make-up, fashion and even surgery, but our experiences and our history is written in our hands. During my Shanghai visit I volunteered at The Will Foundation orphanage. Seeing first-hand the work that they do to offer children the opportunity of an education, love and care made me want to do more to help them. I decided to donate all profits from the sale of my prints and postcards to this cause.”
Tom Page produced his own 50 minute version of Hamlet working with
director, Gavin Robertson. This premiered at the College in October
2014.
Tom’s leadership project was ‘Get Connected’. He ran a
conference focusing on provision of arts opportunities for people with
disabilities in partnership with the Arts Connect project (elements of
which the College host) on which he volunteers. On completion he
commented , “It was a great opportunity to work with everyone involved
in the project. Having been actively involved with theatre beforehand,
it was really nice to help those with disabilities to also get
involved because I believe it has a place for everyone.”
Marianne Smith organised a charity fashion show to raise money for the Teenage Cancer Trust. This is a charity that College pupils have been actively supporting for over four years. In addition to securing sponsorship and support from Cornelia James (glove maker to the Queen), Marianne also received support from several local businesses.
Marianne commented: “The Charity Fashion show was a great event which allowed me to gain an insight and experience the busy fashion industry. This tested my communication and leadership skills – working with companies outside of school and creating a strong team of pupils who helped backstage. I feel like the weeks I spent planning and organising the event really paid off as the evening was a huge success raising over £1000 for Teenage Cancer Trust.”
