Once Upon a Time
The following has been designed to give you information in advance of your visit to Manchester Art Gallery so that you can get the most out of your morning or afternoon activity session.
Aims:
- To introduce pupils to the Gallery of Costume and the fantastic range of resources available
- To observe and understand different materials and textures by dressing up in costumes relevant to fairy tale themes
- To express material qualities, sensations and associations through descriptive vocabulary
- To look at the exhibits in the Gallery of Costume, identify materials and observe how decoration has been used
What happens in a session:
- The pupils will handle a variety of materials and fabrics and will be encouraged to explore the properties of the objects through their senses and descriptive vocabulary
- Fairy tale costumes will be provided to help pupils explore the decorative costumes within the collection costumes
- Using items from the collection as inspiration, pupils will have the opportunity to create stories using who, what and where from narrative therapy.
Preparation:
- Pupils should be aware of material properties, e.g. shiny, soft, bendy, natural, manmade; and of different techniques of production, e.g. woven, knitted, printed.
- Bring a minimum of one adult to five pupils and ensure that adults are briefed to be aware of their supervisory role and responsibilities for engaging the children
- Explain the reasons for no touching or eating in the galleries, ie. for the protection and conservation of artworks
Follow-up:
- Consider the main characters within the story created at the gallery and develop the stories further adding new characters, setting and costume.
- Using dressing up materials, explore drama techniques with the pupils and produce a class play using fairy tale themes or the pupils’ stories.
- Collect a variety of trimmings and fastenings, e.g. buttons, zips, Velcro or ribbons to create a collage suggesting different styles of clothes and character costume
