This installation has been created by students from Harrow Way Community School in Andover. It is the result of an after-school project for year 8 talented artists.
Students visited the gardens last year to soak in the atmosphere and collect visual information of natural forms as drawings and digital photographs. They had the opportunity to view the Art in the Garden 2010 exhibits which formed the basis of discussion about art in a public space and how they might see their work on display. Back at school, the students worked on ideas and discussed the possibilities of using different media, bearing in mind that the work had to endure 5 months in the open air. This culminated in a collaborative piece, which they worked on in an after school club. Each student created a mushroom (or toadstool) which was formed around their own hand. They then added insects, animals and shapes they had seen on their visit and experimented with different ceramic glazes.
The students were given the opportunity to transfer their skills from key stage 3 to key stage 2 when they were joined by talented pupils from Portway, Kimpton and Appleshaw primary schools on two occasions. The first visit was to introduce the project and make the clay mushrooms and the second was to apply the glazes. Their work sits alongside that of Harrow Way in this annual public exhibition.