Written by artist Kirsty Claxton
Friday 26 April second session in St Philips – more observations, more discussion,
more getting to know each other and the place
I spend the morning talking and playing with children. They are curious about a new person
coming into their community and very quickly take a confident lead in instrumentalising me
in their play. I quickly become a resource, another option in their choosing time ‘I want to
work with her’. The children introduce me to their systems, inform me where things belong
and how time is structured. This is their territory and they know how it operates. They are
keen to show me that they are the experts here.
After lunch, (it is as the children tell me with great enthusiasm fish finger Friday, and worth
waiting to the end of the week for) I spend time with Simon. We cover a lot of ground.
Conversation moves between the infrastructure of the education system, local authority,
government policy, pressure on staff, mindfulness, anxiety, politics and gentrification,
movement and migration. I am being presented with an opportunity to begin to know this
nursery, it’s community and St Philips Marsh on many levels. The context is the work.
Some of the things we talked about:
Through action, noise, occupation, intervention?
What might we do:
So...it is quite a beginning.
Friday 26 April second session in St Philips – more observations, more discussion,
more getting to know each other and the place
I spend the morning talking and playing with children. They are curious about a new person
coming into their community and very quickly take a confident lead in instrumentalising me
in their play. I quickly become a resource, another option in their choosing time ‘I want to
work with her’. The children introduce me to their systems, inform me where things belong
and how time is structured. This is their territory and they know how it operates. They are
keen to show me that they are the experts here.
After lunch, (it is as the children tell me with great enthusiasm fish finger Friday, and worth
waiting to the end of the week for) I spend time with Simon. We cover a lot of ground.
Conversation moves between the infrastructure of the education system, local authority,
government policy, pressure on staff, mindfulness, anxiety, politics and gentrification,
movement and migration. I am being presented with an opportunity to begin to know this
nursery, it’s community and St Philips Marsh on many levels. The context is the work.
Some of the things we talked about:
- Boats, the fleet of nursery schools in Bristol - the boat hull, watertight, stable when all at sea around it
- The Marsh - St Philips Marsh, its geography, its history, its politics, its redevelopment, its community, its future
- Plants - transplantation, potting on, living space, sensory space, dining room, meditation
- Despair, support, resilience, fragility, adaptability, failure, refutation of excellence, what do we make visible?
- How do we protect and value my space, My Place?
- Safe-guarding, monitoring, tracking, systems of co-option
- Real estate
- Redevelopment
- Boundary lines
- Exclusion
- How many times and infrastructures can you be placed outside of?
- Belonging
- Exposing invisible walls of power
- Identifying the blocks
- £11.3 million bridge to Nowhere
- Arena Island
- Routines and vision
- Complexities of children's lives
- the vision is calm
Through action, noise, occupation, intervention?
What might we do:
- create a place to think or to rest
- yoga
- green spaces
- walk St Philips
- make ourselves visible
- build a boat
- occupy the parking lot across the road from the Nursery (its up for sale) create a housing development
So...it is quite a beginning.
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