Transitions - Camden Art Centre

Transitions

Transitions was designed to assist children during the challenging move from primary to secondary school, helping to give students the confidence to adjust to a new environment. The three year project explored the experience of change and eased the transition. In partnership with Hampstead secondary, and Beckford, Kingsgate and Emmanuel primary schools in the Borough of Camden.

From June 2008 – April 2009 artist Emma Hart was artist in residence at Hampstead School, working with students who were new to the secondary education system. Based in a studio in the Art Department renamed ‘Question Department’, she encouraged the idea that being lost, nervous or unsure is a great place to start making art from. “It is nearly always questions and uncertainty that provoke me to make artwork. Being nervous about starting something – it’s how to begin.” Emma Hart

Hart’s practice is a course of action, setting out inventive processes to undertake with the moving and still image, primarily using photography. Through trial and error and mostly unpredictable outcomes she questions our conventional understanding of cameras – that they are passive recording devices.

The project explored how an artist can operate within a school. Who should be making art, for whom and where? She reflectsed on the performances inherent within education and the audio visual equipment used within schools, presenting elements of live work and projections made for the classroom.

Following her Transitions residency at Hampstead School Hart presented ‘Question Department’ in the Artists’ Studio.

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