Where do stories come from?
The initial provocation for our project was an exhibition at the Arnolfini of work by the artist Otto Zitko. His paintings consist of large scale abstract lines and squiggles painted in situ over the walls of the gallery.
The work has a great energy and vitality and a childlike sense of play that makes it very exciting to look at. We were keen to explore the children’s responses to these images and to see where an initial provocation around mark-making, and more specifically around lines, would take us. We began by creating a space accesible to all children in which they could interact with various materials without adult direction. Initially mark making was a strong line of enquiry. Having familiarised themselves with the space and the materials, one child unexpectedly began telling the story represented by his drawings and this lead us to ask questions about the relationship between mark-making and storytelling.
