The Evil Necklace by Roberto and Elvis

The Magic Forest, by Xhesiana and Jenny

The king treated her daughter badly, so the king’s daughter ran away to the forest. When she arrived at the forest she thought it was nice, so she took pictures of animals. She saw glowing animals on the picture. She said it was cute so she hugged the animals. When she hugged it she became a horrible, gigantic animal.

Xhesiana and Jenny

A sketched chair – recycling waste – by Lucia Massari

Lucia Massari's chair outside the BLC

Have you seen the chair taped onto the bench outside the Barking Learning Centre? It was created by RCA student, Lucia Massari. “I have made it using waste picked up all around Barking,” Lucia said. “I like the idea that objects can have other chances after they life, and they can live in different shapes and functions sometimes very different from the one they have been created for…”

“I am very  interested in sketches and how can I can translate the way I am drawing into a 3d object. I used cello tape that can help me to sketch super fast without even thinking how the shape should  look like, exactly like I do with my drawing.”

Below are images of the ‘rubbish’ Lucia used to create the chair (the footrest is great, by the way, and there’s even a bookshelf…)

Coffee table? Chair? by Bethan Wood

Coffee table chair by Bethan Wood

“My chair is made from 3 1960’s coffee tables which I found in Barking. I decided to use coffee tables instead of an existing found chair, as I was interested in responding  to the conversation  we had about barking. The conversation focused on the idea that most housing around the area of the BLC is one bed, and because of this very few people have the space for a table which they or their children can work from, that probably the closet thing they have is the coffee table.  Because of this I decided to ‘carve’ a chair out of a coffee table so it can be used as a ‘college chair’.”

Acid Rain Eating Monkeys – The Childlike Ability

The Barking metamorphosis has begun! If you are a resident on the area, look out for a troop of well-dressed design students carrying chairs, a writer taking pictures, young theatre practitioners writing poetry, and a primary school class inventing mythical forests. I’m really happy to be writer in residence at the Barking Learning Centre. As you can imagine, this isn’t any old residency. The interaction of different art forms and age groups makes the process and the product even more exciting. Last week I ran a workshop for the primary school students. The Royal College of Arts students joined in too, and it was amazing watching the two groups working side-by-side, coming up with ideas for 25 inch marshmallows and killer acid-rain eating monkeys. There is something energizing and beautifully honest in the childlike ability to imagine, to go to places where no one else as been. I hope we have many more experiences like this over the next few weeks.

Fossils of Barking

RCA student, Merel Karhof, has named her chair (picture below) ‘Fossils of Barking’. The ‘fossils’ are found in places around Barking. Merel took plasticine moulds of victorian details on Barking buildings, took plaster casts and added those to a chair bought in Barking.

“Each image has it’s own story,” Merel says, “or maybe a story which is made up by the people who will use the chair”.

On Tuesday 11th November, the BLC’s writer-in-residence Yemisi Blake ran two workshops with year 5 students from Gascoigne Primary School and young people from Arc’s youth theatre. The MA students from the Royal College of Arts also took part.

We were looking at the idea of the ‘forest’ coming to Barking (the arboretum, designed by muf, which will open in the next couple of months in the space outside the Barking Learning Centre), and creating fantastical stories about what magic could take place amongst the trees.

The RCA students will create ‘props’ inspired by the young people’s stories which will be used in workshops taking place in 2 weeks time.

Workshop with RCA students and young people at Arc Theatre

Workshop in the gallery space at Barking Learning Centre, with year 5 students from Gascoigne Primary School

Barking Metamorphosis

Barking Metamorphosis is an arts and writing project involving UrbanWords, the writer Yemisi Blake, Platform 2 product design students at the Royal College of Arts, muf Architecture/Art, and Barking and Dagenham Council.

The students from the Royal College of Arts have already populated Barking Learning Centre and Barking Town Square with original chairs, designed from materials found or bought in Barking. There are 6 to find, and 3 more are on their way…

Over the next month, there will be a series of ‘happenings’ at the Barking Learning Centre – from creative workshops with Gascoigne Primary School and Arc Theatre, to the creation of a ‘writer’s room’ within the library. We will be blogging about the project as it evolves, so please bookmark this page, come back to find out what’s happening, and leave us your comments about the project.