Workshop 1.   Religions, Cultures and People.
(Led by Caroline Rackham from The Media Workshop)

This workshop began the thought processes - how people are linked through their cultures and religions and how that feeds into the local environment.   We also examined how people from different cultures are similar - what all people share.  

Exercise 1.  
Thinking about the hobbies, interests and lifestyle of individuals pictured in a series of photographs.   This was completed through group discussion.

Exercise 2.  
In pairs the children created hand drawings using varied skin tone pencils with writing to describe the differences and similarities between the children.   These formed a border for the finished display.

Workshop 2.  
People living in the community.

(Session led by teacher Gordon Blackhurst.)
Gordon showed a computer presentation of websites which showed different ways people live and how those impact on the environment.   The presentation also showed possible future power sources and the children used this presentation as a basis for group discussion.

We discussed the following issues:

What would the children want their future community to be like - perhaps when they are adults.  

What facilities and buildings would the children like in their community?

What would be the environmental impact of the buildings and facilities they propose?

What building would the children like to create for their community?

The children then began to draw their buildings, bearing in mind all the issues raised over the two sessions.   The children created a sketch and concept of a potential building for the children's future community.   This carried on during class time throughout the week and also during a further session with Caroline.    The children were asked not to colour the images so that they could do so on the computer at a later date.

Workshop 3.
Creating the Environment.
Session led by CR.

During the intervening time Caroline scanned all the pictures for the children so that they could then colour their images on the computers.

In small groups Caroline helped the children to use computers to colour the images they had sketched.    This involved an initial demonstration of examples of the way the children could colour the buildings, followed by time for many of the children to create further images of environmental additions and street furniture, e.g. future modes of transport, postboxes or the future equivalent, trees, parks, ponds etc.  

This work was continued over four sessions.  

Workshop 4  
Textile work in the Classroom.
Sessions led by CR.  

The children's pictures were printed onto a canvas type material and given back to them.   They then decorated and embroidered their work.   For many of the children this was one of their first experiences of sewing and although all children were asked to complete at least some stitching, some found it easier to use collage techniques.

This took several sessions to complete and the children also worked on their textiles during the week.

Finishing at the Media Workshop.   The digital images were collated together and where necessary finished and tidied by CR.   They were then slotted into a digital mural which was printed out and the embroidery added to complete the display.  

Evaluation of the Picture This - Southampton in the Future Project.
Input: The initial idea had been partly formed by the teacher in that he wanted to create a view of the city and it was in partnership with The Media Workshop that the idea for the mural was finalised.   The idea of using the computers and textiles to do the work was something which had not been considered before.   The Media Workshop had not worked on a project with such a heavy bias on embroidery and collage techniques.

The Media Workshop was able to bring Adobe software specific to creative projects for the schools work with.

Conclusion
The school was able to use additional software and creative input as extra resources through this project. Using   computers as a creative tool was a new experience for many of the children.

The Media Workshop was able to experiment with more textile-based work .

Because the school was willing to allow plenty of time for the sessions to take place it meant that a thought-provoking and fascinating project could take place, with a good quality end result.  

Doing and Showing

Problems and challenges during the course of the project.

Problem Identified: Lack of Time for the project:
Initially the amount of time to be needed was difficult to approximate.

It was really because of the flexibility of the school in allowing time to be spent on the project where needed, the resulting work was of a high standard and quality.

Problem Identified:
The children were full of ideas for their buildings and it was sometimes very difficult to include these ideas in their visual work.   We decided to allow some text on the pictures and in fact this gave the children the additional skill of learning how to use text in graphics software as well as through word processing software.