Peacehaven Community School was the setting for a Drug of Art digital story telling workshop run by MAF trustee, Isobel Creed together with Ross Adamson and MA student, Iris Cabellero Perez.
The workshop ran over three days and included story telling exercises with drawing, writing, plasticine and collage and learning about scriptwriting and video editing software. On the final day, the group held a viewing of the digital stories for family and friends.
Says the team:
We worked with a group of young people from the creative writing after-school club and their fantastic teacher Peter Myson, over a three-day workshop. The group were incredibly enthusiastic and creative, going on to their after school creative writing club after a full day of digital storytelling. We worked with plasticine, drawing, videos and still photography and they produced some incredible films which examined themes such as family, loneliness and the power of creativity to take them to a different world.
Reflecting on how well the workshop aligned with the values for this project, Isobel commented :
The core principle of digital storytelling is that the storyteller is in control of their own story so at every stage we allowed the young people to make their own decisions and the story circle encourages deep listening to everyone’s story so it very much is in keeping with JONK’s value of every person’s thoughts, comments and contributions are valued equally. It also reflected the MAF values of nurturing creativity and partnership – we invited the school to input into every stage of planning and worked closely with them to ensure it met the groups needs and we worked with the young people to find a variety of ways that they could express themselves creatively.
The school was delighted with the workshop:
I just wanted to say thank you so much – those three days were a real treat. It was really special for me to be a part of that and I know the students are still buzzing about it. The members of staff who came to see the screening, including our head, were full of praise and blown away by the students’ work.
To watch some of the digital stories, click HERE
*Image via Firmbee