One of our children's mothers provided the impetus for our nursery sculpture project. She is the artistic director of the October Gallery, the first London gallery to exhibit contemporary art from around the world. She knew that we had an empty courtyard without any seating and thought it would be a great idea to involve the children in creating seat sculptures.
By working collaboratively with a group of five artists from different countries around the world, the 80 children aged three to five years were given the chance to understand what it means to be an artist.
They started by designing their own animal seats. The artists then produced drawings of the ten designs that were considered to be the most feasible as seat sculptures. Of those, the children picked their favourite six, and then the work on the sculptures could begin.
The children worked in groups to produce two sculptures each. They started by making papier mache models, which were later translated into cement sculptures by a group of artists from the October Gallery. The children were invited to observe the different stages of the process. The children then took part in designing and applying the mosaics to decorate the cement sculptures.
The children decided that they would have a spider, an elephant, a lion, a giraffe, a caterpillar and a unique creature with body parts from different animals, although it looks a bit like a rabbit.
The project was a huge success. Over the year the children and artists were able to build on the relationships among themselves - after the artists got over the initial surprise of working with three-year-olds!
It was a great learning experience both for the children and the adults and it demonstrated the importance of the arts. It was interesting, exciting, motivating and purposeful.
I think the children got a real sense of satisfaction out of the project. For such young children, working on such a big project had a very positive impact on their self-esteem.
The children are thrilled with their creations. They make up their own stories about the animals' life events, past and present.They even say 'Good morning' and 'Good night' to them and have great debates about whether the lion is roaring or laughing.
Mahrukh Choughtai spoke to Bernadette Duffy, head of Thomas Coram Early Childhood Centre
