Weird and Wonderful Life Forms – a remote art gathering of young people during the Summer

This past August, we were delighted to welcome twelve teenagers to participate in our new remote art camp “Weird and Wonderful Life Forms” with Helium Artist Yvonne Cullivan.  Across three sessions, teens were given the opportunity to work with collage, photography, drawing, colour, text and some simple animation. The sessions took part during on and offline activities including creative sessions over Zoom, optional drop-in studio time, off-line independent making, and sharing creativity in a private group online space called Padlet.

One of the key objectives was to communicate to participants that there is no one way to engage in this programme and no judgement on what they decided to make. Everyone made their own unique artworks. Young people were invited to engage and share as much or as little as they wished.

Helium Arts’ Youth Advisory Group members contributed to the design and content of this remote programme for young people. 

Day 1

For the first day of the course, all of the participants took part in a Zoom call with artist Yvonne where they could meet others who would be taking part in the camp through fun warm-up games. This was also a time to meet the artist Yvonne who shared inspirational images to help spark the young people’s imaginations about ‘a weird and wonderful’ version of themselves .

After the Zoom, participants received an email outlining the day’s activities.  These were self-directed tasks in which they could create an alternative portrait of themselves using found objects or using collage. When finished, they were asked to take a photograph of their artwork.

Day 2

For the second day of the programme, the participants were given the option of using their portrait from the previous day or creating an entirely new one. They were given the option of making a more traditional collage, something completely abstract, or a moving landscape.

Day 3

Day three of the course started off a little differently with a creative challenge! The teens were given the option of making a collage landscape, adding text to a collage, making a 3D animation using paper and card or making a zine using collage. Once they were finished, they were invited to upload their images to Padlet.

After this, the participants joined Yvonne online for an optional drop-in session, where they could make and chat side by side. The purpose of this meeting was to celebrate and reflect on all that they had achieved over the past few days.