Recently funded Pulse Awards
May 2005
Impact
CroydonCouncil – Davina Christmas
'Impact' brings together clinical scientist Dr Sheila Ochugboju and leading contemporary dance company Angika. The team will work with groups of young dancers (aged 16-18) to create a unique dance performance responding to discoveries in epigenetics. The performance will tour to secondary schools followed by an interactive discussion about the themes raised by the work.
What are the Burning Issues for my Body?
Oh!Art – Pippa Bailey
'What are the Burning Issues for my Body?', led by Oh!Art at Oxford House, aims to explore the 'hot' issues in biomedical science, as perceived by young Bengali and Somali women in Tower Hamlets, through creative writing and visual art. The project is a collaboration between fiction writer Rabina Khan, visual artist Kinsi Abdulleh and science writer Susan Aldridge. The project will culminate in an event that brings the participants and their friends/families together to share the work created.
DNA and Me
PVA Media Lab – Mandy Rathbone
Teachers at Thomas Hardye School in Dorchester will work with students (aged 13-16) and filmmaker Peter Snelling to create a film based on the subject of DNA and how it affects identity. The completed film will be used as the basis for a symposium on the topic of DNA for students and teachers at other schools in West Dorset.
Understanding Cancer
Theatre Venture – Gary Horsman
Theatre Venture, Face Front Inclusive Theatre and Cancerlife will collaborate to create an original piece of multi-layered theatre that will raise awareness of cancer issues for school students in North and East London. Students (aged 11-14) will be involved in the development of the play, which will be performed in seven venues over a three-month period. The team will also develop a teaching pack with pre- and post-performance lesson plans.
The Scientific Art of Identity
Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design – Hilda Peters
Two professional artist/teachers and a science teacher will work with children (aged 7-10), their teachers and classroom assistants, at the Sensation Science Centre in Dundee. They will run workshops on DNA and 'who we are', and make artwork in a number of media. One of the aims of the project will be to devise a modular template for INSET provision.
Mind Mine
Campbell Works – Harriet Murray
'Mind mine' will be an interactive art installation designed, developed and created by school children (aged 7-15) in Hackney with the support of artists, teachers and scientists. The project will include research into ways of communicating brain function to young people. The artwork will excite and stimulate young people by providing a graphic, interactive experience of how the brain works. A cardboard labyrinth will emulate the structure of the brain, and the audience will represent physical thoughts travelling through it. Visual and other sensory stimuli act as information stored in the brain influencing these 'physical thoughts' in deciding which route to follow.
Living with Sickle Cell
The Roundhouse – Elizabeth Lynch
Young people living with sickle cell anaemia will produce a video with Roundhouse artists and health professionals. The film will address the social impact of the condition on both the African-Caribbean and wider communities. The group will explore how film can be used imaginatively to convey not just up-to-date medical information but also to make a more profound difference to attitudes and behaviour by touching hearts and minds.
Playing God?
All Change – Suzanne Lee
Working with artists and scientists, young people will create artworks and performances combining dance, digital images, sound and text to be shared through performances and interventions at Sadler's Wells Lilian Baylis Theatre, in public settings, schools and youth centres. A project website will host artworks and information about the science topics. The project will explore topical and controversial themes including stem cell research and gene therapy. Supported by scientists and medical ethicists the focus will be on developing young people's understanding of the science and the implications for society in finding a cure for a wide range of conditions such as deafness, diabetes, Parkinson's and motor neurone disease.
Do I Look Strange? Inside the turbulent mind of Robert Louis Stevenson
The Wright Stuff – Steve Wright
'Do I look Strange?' will be an innovative puppet theatre performance and workshop package designed to stimulate debate about schizophrenia and mental health. The project will focus on the tragically short life of Stevenson, one of Victorian society's most eloquent writers on the duality and criminality of the human mind. The workshop will use contemporary puppet characters to explore themes related to the performance. Over 300 young people will be directly involved in the production and development of the project.
Boy Child
Dorset County Hospital – Alexandra Coulter
'Boy Child' is a project exploring maleness, the impact of science on male roles in contemporary society, health in the male population and the science of memory. Drawing on the stories of seven males from birth to old age, the project will engage male children, young offenders, health service staff and older men in developing cross-artform activities. The process will be collaborative, involving the documentation of personal histories and experience, and will result in seven pieces of work, created as independent site-specific events, and then brought together into a larger scale event aimed at a wider audience.
A Hollywood/Bollywood Epic: 'The Microbe/Disease Fight for World Supremacy'
ActionDog Productions – Joel Churcher
The nature of how a killer disease strives to protect itself, surviving against all the progress of modern science, is reminiscent of a classic Hollywood/Bollywood style epic. There are the good guys, the bad guys, the victims and the fight for world supremacy. ActionDog Productions will channel young people's creative enthusiasm for music and drama, and turn their focus onto the subject of microbes and disease. The young people will learn new music/video technology and recording skills while producing a Hollywood/Bollywood style film. The films will be shown to an audience of other students, teachers, friends and families.
December 2005
Sci.dentity
Central School of Speech and Drama – Catherine McNamara
'Sci.dentity' is a performing and visual arts project involving a group of young transsexual people who will explore their understanding of the relationship between the science of sex and sexed identities. The group will create a multimedia and performance art exhibition/event of young transsexual people's art work. A short film will also be produced, which will document the creative workshops, present interviews with experts and incorporate some of the art work. The film will then be used as a stimulus for discussions as part of a community outreach programme for post-16 school and college groups as well as within youth work settings.
Resonance
Birmingham Contemporary Music Group – Nancy Evans
'Resonance' explores and celebrates - with young musicians - the relationships between cutting edge science and music. It is a collaboration between Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, scientists from the Henry Wellcome Building for Biomolecular NMR Spectroscopy and String Quartets from Scratch. Three composers will each write a string quartet for young musicians inspired by NMR Spectroscopy. Each composer, paired with a scientist and supported by BCMG musicians will lead a series of composition and science workshops as well as workshops to try out the emerging quartets. The quartets will be published alongside a resource book for secondary school music teachers.
Colour Coded
Resource Base – Karen Gilchrist
Young people from Handsworth will get beneath the skin for a series of short films on pigmentation. Created by an informal filmmaking group, in partnership wit a dermatologist and production company Resource Base, the resulting DVD will feature an experimental mix of drama, dance, poetry and documentary film, exploring science from a young black perspective.
In vivo. In vitro, in form
Learning Lighthouse CLC – April Jones
'In vivo. In vitro, in form' explores developments in the design, manufacture and use of artificial and organic replacement and regenerated body parts. Pupils from the Wirral area will produce robotic puppets with unusual abilities, futuristic digital images of designer replacement limbs and animations. Inspiration will come from meeting scientists, prosthetists, amputees and robotic engineers. The art work will be produced in collaboration with artists resident in schools, and will be presented in the form of a walk-through installation and a series of experimental performances. Live and web-based debates will address some of the controversial issues raised through the project.
Sensitive
Phoenix Arts Association – Anna Dumitriu
'Sensitive' is a project that engages young people from Varndean School in Brighton with the subject of allergy, in collaboration with Professor Helen Smith, lead artist Anna Dumitriu and Brighton-based Phoenix Arts Association's outreach programme. By participating in hands-on workshops students will develop an understanding of the subject of allergy, which they will learn to express through a series of both large- and small-scale interventions around their school, incorporating digital or video projections, installation craft-based techniques and live art performance.
Body in Motion
Phoenix Dance Theatre – Tracy Witney
Phoenix Dance Theatre's education team will work with science educators to deliver a series of creative dance workshops in this cross-curricular project, which aims to improve understanding of human biology. They will work with up to 280 pupils (years 5 and 6) from eight Leeds primary schools to develop a creative performance piece with each group. Weekly workshops will be delivered over a six week period on the theme of the human body, its structure and ways in which it functions. Sessions will explore various aspects of the working body though the medium of dance with the aid of digital technology.
Crime Scene
WhiteSpace – Lesley Thomson
Crime Scene is a visual arts and multimedia based project led by two groups from Harlaw Academy Aberdeen. The groups will create a forensic site, an investigation and solve a series of mysteries while creating an installation piece based around their discoveries in Aberdeen Art Gallery. Artists Stefan Syrowatka and Helen Partridge will work with 20–30 students from the school to produce the piece using media such as glass and photography. They will do so while incorporating visits to actual archaeological sites, working with Grampion Police and forensic anthropologists.
June 2006
Touching Science
Half Moon Theatre – Jackie Eley
'Touching Science' is a multi-sensory drama project exploring biomedical science with children of all abilities, from the ages of three to seven. By building on the 'eureka moments' experienced by children as they develop a knowledge and understanding of the world, this project helps them make a creative connection with science and to develop a curiosity for the social and ethical issues relating to advances in biomedical science. The project comprises experimental cross-arts drama workshops in the children's own settings, as well as at the Half Moon's theatre space, using the technical resources including lighting, sound and special effects to create an installation.
Who Wants to Live Forever?
Toynbee School – Deborah Dalton
From the ancient Greek myth of Eos Tithonus (who ended up as a grasshopper, by mistake), through Juan Ponce de Leon and his failed quest in 1513 for the fountain in modern day Florida, to today's anti-ageing creams and treatments, people have dreamed of finding something that would keep them young forever. In 'Who Wants to Live Forever?' pupils from Toynbee School, working in partnership Little Angel Theatre, will blend puppetry with their drama to present the search for eternal youth and question the benefits and drawbacks that this would cause society.
Sonic Streams
Foundation for Art and Creative Technology (FACT) – Laura Sillars
'Sonic Streams' is a creative exploration of how sound can affect the human body. FACT and Alder Hey Children's Hospital bring together young people, established new media artists and a science team led by a paediatric neurologist. Drawing together creative and scientific work, the project will research how sound might be used educationally in aiding recovery and promoting wellbeing. Children and young people will be involved throughout the process, from scientific research to production of artwork. Content developed will form education resources delivered to schools at FACT, Alder Hey and online. The programme adds a new dimension to the hospital's neurological research and evaluation will be disseminated nationally.
Bio-Mation
Arts Action York – Dave Flemming
A team of artists and clinicians will engage young people from the children's ward at York Hospital in creating their own animation films exploring social, emotional and scientific aspects of their medical conditions. The films will be projected onto a large blank exterior wall (overlooked by the children's ward) at the south entrance of the hospital as well as in other public venues. School groups will research and develop information packs to accompany the animations, and produce an educational resource for use by medical staff, students and patients.
Corporeal Cacophony (Body Babble)
Actiondog Prodductions – Joel Churcher
Actiondog's team of professionals musicians, composers and artists, and a small team of science professionals, will work with the Jack Petchey Academy on a music project inspired by Honda's Power of Screams TV commercial, where a choir replicates the various sounds of the Honda Civic. The children will select a medical condition and visually and audibly recreate what is happening as the condition develops. Groups will work with voice, digital media and physical theatre and the project will culminate in a final live show with the choir performing their soundscapes accompanied by a backdrop of digital images. The event will be filmed and distributed on DVD.