Thinking Room: a website, an exhibition and process
Thinking Room is the culmination of a ten month Knowledge Transfer Partnership project (KTP) from October 2010 to July 2011 between Birkbeck College, University of London, and A New Direction, an Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation which sits at the intersection of the arts and education sectors working strategically across London to provide opportunities for young people to access the best of arts and culture.
The purpose of the KTP project has been to uncover and explicate those working methods and processes across A New Direction’s programmes, which have developed under the rubric of ‘creativity’. These are the practices that are so crucial to many arts and education practitioners but are difficult to define and as such are often overlooked. The particular focus of the project has been on the organisation’s year-long Olympic themed Enquiry Schools programme “The Biggest Learning Opportunity on Earth” (BIGLOP) which consists of fourteen arts organisations delivering projects within 150 London schools during the 2010/2011 academic year.
Thinking Room both hosts and represents the KTP research and is a combination of an online resource, exhibition and a programme of facilitated meetings, events and conversations, related to the intangible and creative practices of facilitation within arts and education. The research falls under the following headings: Partnership Working; Languages of Creative Practice; Creative Working; Managing Change; and Remembering Practice. It is presented in a playful way, using items from an ideal ‘home’ to suggest an open, interactive environment that fosters shared understanding and equal voice. Traces of ‘home’ infiltrate this website, the exhibition and its accompanying events. During the exhibition (4th – 8th July 2011), materials relating to critical evaluation, creative change within schools, the rhetoric of quality and engagement, archives of creative practice and the values of partnership working will be discussed and uploaded.
You are invited to explore the website by selecting from the domestic icons on the home page to read about the KTP research, download resources and read about A New Direction’s main principles and processes. You can also read our blog posts and view a live webcam from the Thinking Room exhibition at A New Direction headquarters. We are inviting blog comments and feedback about the contents of this website to contribute to a growing archive about creative processes.
It is through the generous support of staff and colleagues at A New Direction and Birkeck that Thinking Room is made possible. The design of the site is by Jusna Begum at A New Direction. The content of the site has been developed by the KTP core team Sarah B Davies, Dr Ben Cranfield (Birkbeck), Dr Kate MacKenzie Davey (Birkbeck) and Natasha Silsby (A New Direction), with invaluable help from A New Direction’s friends and partners who have taken part in surveys and discussions to help build the research findings.
To visit the exhibition during the 4th – 8th July, make an appointment to visit by emailing Sarah.Davies@anewdirection.org.uk.
To make a comment in the Thinking Room, visit the Thinking Room exhibition blog.
