Dean Leivers

‘Looking In, Looking Out’ is a participatory project of artist residencies teaching analogue photography & poetry on 9 school sites, using environmental-stimuli & based in a transparent dome. An innovation for students & residents with low cultural capital, interweaving science, art history, social science, literature & art. It’s a development of the first project (Dependent Origination Funded by Arts Council England) this project is an innovation that bridges formal wellbeing tools (mindfulness) with creative practice, led by two professional Artists; Akshay Sharma (AKA Mr Shay) and myself.

The project used different creative practices to enable students to explore and experience the strength within each one of them. It introduces and spotlights the importance of Recognising (what’s inside and outside ourselves), Recording (mentally or physically taking note) and Responding (taking action).

The workshops will be following the themes of:

- ‘Environmental observation’ (paying close attention to the visual landscape). This then leads into a photographic workshop with Dean using the analogue historical cyanotype process to create images using handmade treated paper, natural found objects and sunlight.

- ‘Environmental listening’ (paying close attention to the soundscape). This leads into a creative writing session with Shay, using sounds from the vicinity as a stimulus for writing poetry, with potential to practice performing it too.

Each participant will create one cyanotype image each and, either an individual poem or a collaborative group poem (dependent on age/ability of year group).

The countdown is now on as we land in our first partner school in just under two weeks time. More updates will follow as we work with the schools but for a more visual overview of the project see the video below.