Tron St. Mary’s Church, 128 Red Road

Our work with asylum seekers and refugees includes an English conversation class, a toddlers group for young children and adults, and a Wednesday afternoon drop-in. At the drop-in the children enjoy games and activities, while the adults meet in the café area. We also organize occasional cultural evenings and outings.

The project
Three artists worked with children in a drop in-group in Tron St. Mary’s church. The children picked up new ideas and skills very quickly and, although there were a number of other activities going on, including football, table tennis and computer games, there were over 20 children at each workshop and out of the chaos some exciting work developed. There were a number of group projects and the 3D representation of the Red Road flats, where all the children proudly stuck their country’s flag on top of the high-rise flats, was exhibited in GoMA alongside the group paintings and models which were made. The groups naturally split into the painters and model makers (some excellent battery operated models were created around the theme of travel).

Finally as part of the workshops the children went round the people at the drop-in and interviewed people using their own questions. Ali Hasanov plays the piano in the background and the piece records the atmosphere in a very lively and creative drop-in centre.

The comments

• ‘It (the project) was very much enjoyed by the children who participated. They were encouraged to develop new skills and worked towards a very worth while project’
• 'each week was good, but everybody really enjoyed going to the exhibition at GoMA and seeing the work on display.'
• ‘there were lots of good things’
• ‘the tutors were very helpful……. they never said no’

the best thing was

• ‘the slide workshop because they were beautiful’
• ‘the museum trip. We did lots of things and went back and made it’

the worst thing was

• ‘cutting out ….sore fingers and hands’

what do you think we can do to make this project better

• ‘making realistic things out of plastic so they float’ – we discovered the cardboard didn’t float as well as we wanted!

Artists
Lesley –Anne Clark, Belinda Guidi and James Mclardy