Tate Exchange with Reading Scholars

Reading Scholars is a scheme run by the University of Reading, with an aim to give Year 10 and 12 students from schools around the country, the opportunity to experience university and everything it has to offer. The scheme is run with help from departments and students, who give further information on what the course, and university, is like.

I am one of these students – my name is Charlotte Abraham and I am going into my third year of Art and Psychology at the University of Reading. I have been helping with the Reading Scholars scheme for two years, bringing creative minds and ArtLab together at the university. I will be posting about some of the events that these two groups come together, from a students perspective.

Together at Tate Modern in January 2018, was the first big opportunity working with ArtLab outside of the confines of the ‘classroom’ back in Reading. The Year 12 students from the art and design strand worked as co-researchers of the ArtLab team, exploring artists materials ‘from the clay that the dinosaurs walked on to building new experiences with 3D printers and green screen’.

Throughout the day, the students were taken through different ways of making, producing and thinking about artworks. This was taken into account when working with clay to create faces, hands and a giant sculpture, and wrapping people in pink shrink wrap. The environment of being in the Tate, surrounded by other artworks allowed the creative juices to fully flow – we even had people using phones as strobe lights and twisting themselves around an exercise ball with the pink shrink wrap.

For a more detailed account of the Tate Exchange event, head over to my blog. Here, you can see what we get up to with ArtLab, Reading Scholars, and in the Art portion of my university course.