Circus
Revising some animation work on a circus theme… for upcoming animation projects with children and young people. I made this as an example for an online project with children in a Homework Club in Sligo, and sponsored by Kids’ Own Publishing Partnership.
The music is Mehbooba Mehbooba, borrowed from R.D. Burman’s Bollywood by Asha Bhosle and Kronos Quartet and the artwork is inspired by paintings by Marc Chagall and Edgar Degas – seeking expression between audio and image … interpretation – colour – movement – form – a felt in the body somatic expression
From this 2022’s Autumn trip to Offaly, working with the Arts Office, producing films with young people in primary and secondary schools for Birr Film Festival Offline’s Mini Movies
I am interested in children’s culture, visual narrative and creative play. I have been working with Kids’ Own Publishing Partnership on residency projects in schools (since 2000) and I devised, developed and lead the annual stop-motion summer camps with children at Crawford Gallery.
Here are a few examples from various projects:
This is an animated “whiteboard conversation” made online with students at Killard House Special School, Donaghadee, Northern Ireland. It was inspired by a story about a princess who could see everything, we had been looking at the work of David Hockney and reading the Grimms fairy tales he illustrated. We were interested in looking and in layers, revealing and concealing. One of the students named the project “Blending in and Standing out” This work is an example of some of the co-creations made during Virtually There with Kids’ Own Publishing Partnership. I worked in 3 different schools over a period of 7 years, work from this project toured galleries and art centres across the country and produced 2 publications about Arts Process and practice Virtually There and Open Space https://kidsown.ie/product-category/artists-practice-and-process/
another example of the Blending in //Standing out Layers project
here are some entries from my artist blog on this project:
http://projects.kidsown.ie/killard-house-school-artist-journal/
The animation above is documenting the artist’s response to drawing instructions given by children as “recipes”. This project was devised by the artist during her residency with Kids Own Publishing partnership’s Virtually There at Our Lady of Lourdes School Belfast. Inspired by instruction drawings by Sol le Witt The Cave Hill Diamonds Works toured to galleries and exhibition venues across Ireland and became a focus for interactive visitor responses to the exhibition as a whole.
http://projects.kidsown.ie/our-lady-of-lourdes-artist-blog/
http://projects.kidsown.ie/sacred-heart-primary-school-artist-blog/
About Virtually There on Kids Own Publishing Partnership Website:
CRAWFORD ART GALLERY Follow Your Nose with children in Direct Provision and Cruinniu na nÓg
Follow Your Nose is a project co-created with children in Direct provision. Workshops take place online on Saturday mornings where children decide what they would like to draw each week. Follow Your Nose was devised by Julie Forrester in collaboration with The Crawford Art gallery and Cork Migrant Centre. This vidoe was produced with Annie Mar for Cruinniu na nÓg the the Crawfors Gallery 2021
https://crawfordartgallery.ie/follow-your-nose-into-drawing/
CRAWFORD ART GALLERY Home Life (online activities)
I instigated the Home Life series for families at home during the first COVID lockdown. The series was envisaged with my avatar that emerged during the Virtually there exchanges at Killard House. The video above is the first tutorial in the series. More in the series can be found here:
https://crawfordartgallery.ie/homelife-3/
CRAWFORD ART GALLERY Animation Summer Camps
My popular Animation summer camps have been running at The Crawford Art Gallery since 2006. The Summer Camps took Centre stage at the Seen (not) Heard Exhibition in July/August 2019. Animations by Children on recent Summer Camps conducted online can be found on the dedicated Gallery vimeo channel here:
https://vimeo.com/user118261777
Older works with children from the summer camps can be found on the mixadacat vimeo channel (since 2006!) Works were showcased annually in the sculpture gallery at the end of the summer. Here is an example showreel of works from 2006
CRAWFORD ART GALLERY INTER-GENERATIONAL ANIMATION PROJECT
This animation was co-created as part of an Inter generational Animation Project co- devised with The Crawford Art Gallery with Togher Girls’ School and members of the Togher Community, Cork
THE SODACAKEVILLE In 2008 Kids Own Publishing Partnership and The Northside Digihub invited me to be artist in residence with a group of girls from the local primary School in the Kileely parish of Limerick City. The Sodacakeville was a blog and fantasy world co-created with with girls at the Northside Digihub, Killeely, Limerick
The blog reamins online here https://sodacake.blogspot.com/
Below is one scene from The Sodacakeville animations we made together:
julforrester 