what was Nest on Sunday 24th February 2008?
april 5th 2008
I made the mistake of talking about Nest recently with some undergraduates I teach, without having planned how I was going to discuss it. "It was in a primary school, near Basildon. The school had been transformed into an installation – a number of 'nests'. Artists had worked with staff and children to create the nests. Erm … it was amazing." Not surprisingly, they didn’t ‘get it’. It is - quite possibly - hard to ‘get’ - unless you were there.
The reason I went to Nest is because it captures something of an area of performance work that preoccupies me: the performance of place. Nest fitted the bill. A number of artists (visual, sound, installation) had worked in Briscoe’s for nearly three years as part of ‘re-viewing’ the school through artistic practices. I knew very little more about Nest but that was partly deliberate so as to come into the work without preconceptions. Before travelling to Basildon, I reflected on what I knew about the place, both in terms of the Essex town and also the school.
‘Place’ is a tricksy word. It’s lost some of its traditional meanings in the last fifty years with significant global people-movement (enforced or otherwise). Few of us have long established relationships with ‘our local place’. Not many can say, even should we wish to, ‘our family has lived here for generations’. The Basildon area itself was known for its ‘plotlands’ - patches of ground newly acquired by city dwellers for holidaying. Originally used for allotments or summer houses, there’s almost a hint, here, of people intent on swiftly creating a ‘place’, perhaps, to compensate for long term inhabitation. We do make places quickly, though – homes, shops … and schools. Briscoe Primary School and Nursery is, of course, a ‘familiar’ place to pupils, staff, parents and carers and has doubtless become part of its inhabitants’ everyday operations for some long time now. Yet, the school itself is hard to find, tucked away behind a car park and health centre, a humble low-rise building without much signage, far back from the road.
So what happened to Briscoe Primary School and Nursery as a result of Nest? I was just a visitor interested in this kind of stuff and wasn’t party to the long creative background to the project or the discussions no doubt held between artists, school and the Creative Partnership commissioners. But what was going on here for this visitor or outsider?
For me, Nest was an example of community and artistic process resulting in one of the most remarkable ‘performances’ I have seen in a school. It was an ‘experience’, an immersion into a much altered environment. As a new visitor, of course, I was in the interesting position of imagining the norm (the school) behind the ‘interruption’ (the performance installation) as well as admiring the ‘interruption’ for its own creativity and artistry. I was re-viewing without having viewed the original.
Dr Sally Mackay has published an essay, written with Sarah Cole, in Teatro aplicado, compiled by Maria Fukelman, for Collection Ciencias Del Arte
ISBN: 978-987-3920-57-8
Two moments summarise my experience of Nest. I sat next to a girl with beautiful hair in a bomb-shelter structure, itself within a dimly lit classroom. Sounds and whispered voices came from a machine that she floated around in front of her as if urging us to hear these echoes from the past. Second, I was standing in a gymnasium watching a woman iron, seeing another form words in soil on the floor and admiring a costume for a third made out of pages from a Jane Austen book. Along with many other parts of Nest, both these moments were, somehow, profoundly moving but I wasn’t sure why this was so at the time.
Retrospectively, I think it was to do with a combination of factors. First, these were aesthetically undetermined installations: you were left to make many of the meanings for yourself and not told exactly what it was about. This is a privileged position to be in. The creators of the work trusted us to make up our own minds about ideas that they had developed. That was an honour. Second, the new interpretations of familiar places catapulted us into different territory, which was unsettling - although not at all in a negative way. (The classroom and gym are replicated across the country so even as a newcomer to Briscoe, the sites were generically familiar.) To be unsettled somehow leaves you emotionally vulnerable. Third, the work appeared to deal with powerful themes. Sitting tightly packed in an air raid shelter, matters of loss, pain, struggle and – frankly - humanity aren’t too far away from your mind. In the gym I found heartfelt questions about the acrobatics of a woman’s life wrapped up in a playful setting. Fourth, each was a powerful performance of place. The participants of the Briscoe ‘community’, had engaged with a familiar environment and turned it into something special and I was excited by this. Perhaps this, too, left me emotional.
That is not to say that finding something profoundly moving is a ‘good’ thing, of course, but it is a sign of admiration and appreciation and that is what I am left with feeling. Nest was extraordinary artistic and community work. It was a privilege to be there.
Professor Sally Mackey.
what has Nest meant to us?
I'd been at Briscoe a matter of days when Creative Partnerships contacted me about placing a bid for a school project. At that time the pupils and staff were very vulnerable, behaviour was a huge issue and my days were spent 'fire fighting'. I didn't have the time to place a bid but was interested so I agreed to meet with Serena Abbott the Creative Programmer and she accepted my bid on a post-it note! It read something along the lines of 'I want the children at Briscoe to be motivated to learn'- that basic! Three years on, our work with Creative Partnerships has achieved this and so much more.
Within a fortnight of being involved with CP we had all the children standing in the Hall, singing a new school song, surrounding David who accompanied them on his guitar. I remember the worried look on the faces of the staff sat around the edge (and the uneasy feeling inside me - would a fight break out?) when David suggested they all stand up. At the time that was a risk that we wouldn't have taken, but David went for it! A magic moment; the first time I'd seen happy, smiling faces cooperating and working together.
Our 'Lie of the Land' Project evolved from many conversations with myself, teachers, support staff, pupils and parents with Sarah Cole our Project Manager and Lead Artist. We refer to it as an 'organic' process as it's grown and taken shape, changed direction and evolved as we learnt from our experiences and reflected upon our expectations. The journey has been risky (building an enormous nest in our New Hall; exploring emotional 'bombshells' with Year 6; writing on the corridor and classroom walls in a staff meeting; Jules wheeling the piano out into the playground at lunchtime and playing for the children...), inspirational and hysterical (staff training and two staff residentials that have resulted in a much closer team and the emergence of hidden talents), full of awe and wonder (digging on the school field and discovering 'treasure' with metal detectors, cataloguing finds and setting up our own Museum; using clay dug from the field to make pots and masks; designing and building our own 'Bunny Park'; leading and being led around a farm blindfolded...) and motivational for children, staff and parents.
may 16th 2008
This bespoke project has left us with many happy memories and the opportunity to take part and experience a whole range of creative activities - Nest being the most amazing of these! It has also had an impact long term. We now have a team of confident and talented support staff capable of delivering creative and enjoyable PPA time projects. These are appreciated by the children and teachers and are no longer the stressful hours of the week where senior staff spent time dealing with behaviour issues! We have our own 'Bunny Park' where children care for the rabbits (and guinea pig) on a daily basis. We have our own Museum that is beginning to be used to help stimulate creative writing, support history projects and encourage research methodologies. Our use of our extensive grounds is developing with new vegetable plots and flowerbeds. Staff are now more inclined to take risks and approach learning in a different way, less concerned with product and more playful with process, including senior leaders who now have meetings that are vibrant and full of creative thinking, reflection and ideas! This work has even extended beyond the school boundaries, with performances happening outside near the local shops, exhibitions in Basildon town centre and the involvement of members of our parents group in Nest. This core group of parents explored their own feelings about home life, creativity and learning and made a major contribution to our promenade Nest performance.
The journey hasn't always been easy: staff, children, parents and governors have needed to take risks - most have paid off; focusing on processes rather than products has required a change in approach both for the adults and the children; many staff have given up their own time without knowing quite what they were letting themselves in for; staff, children and parents have participated in activities where they have found themselves outside of their comfort zone; timelines, some events and activities have lacked clarity beforehand, but we've gone for it!
For me, as a new Headteacher in a challenging school, Creative Partnerships provided the vehicle to explore creative ways of tackling under-achievement and a lack of motivation. Our school is different now to how it was three years ago and our work with Creative Partnerships has played a big part in this improvement.
Diane Pilgrim
Headteacher
Briscoe Primary School and Nursery