Vibrant ACS arts education programmes will continue to inspire students and help them grow personally and academically. From school or from home. ACS students will be busy making, performing and presenting artistic work - alone and together in 2020-21.
This year, distance learning offered students and teachers amazing opportunities to explore the arts in new ways, leading to dynamic digital exhibitions and virtual performances. Music lessons continued online, and students collaborated using Soundtrap technology to create sophisticated performances. Wherever ACS arts students are in space and time, they will be pursuing a rich curriculum with strong practical components and effective teaching methodologies.
ACS Cobham's Jazz Messengers: The Lockdown Sessions
Large, well-ventilated learning spaces will support innovative practice in which students can explore new genres, formats and technologies that enable collaborative studio work in safety - using industry standards being used at world class venues like the famous Abbey Road Studios. If live productions aren’t possible, students will use media and professional videography to share their work. Every restriction and constraint presents opportunities for learning. Our student artists understand how the limits they encounter can push their own artistic boundaries and expand the audiences who can interact with their work.
Art helps us understand the world and express our emotional reaction to experience. The creative process can be a powerful way to promote wellbeing and healthy stress management. ACS Cobham’s mental health first aiders sponsored an open gallery and competition in which parents, staff and student participated in mindful art-making that explores the theme of Mental Health in Lockdown.
Lockdown art: Kina A, Grade 12, ACS Cobham
This work is part of a larger Lockdown Gallery, inspired by Grayson’s Art Club in which leading UK artist Grayson Perry led a TV mission to unleash collective creativity and unite the nation through art, as the world lives through the coronavirus crisis. This unique exhibition chronicles the changing moods of ACS in distance learning and provides a record of the historic times we’re living through. Even in isolation, learning and making art continued at ACS schools. Whatever happens, ACS students are not alone! Innovative approaches to arts education will sustain young artists and the ACS arts community in 2020-21.