Revolutionary Nature: Under The Grit The Garden

We are creating a wildflower garden in the Iconic Liverpool Oratory grounds. You are invited to celebrate the transformation during a drawing event with Jayne Seddon, artist in residence at The LIPA Primary School, John Hyatt, director of Art Labs Research at LJMU; and the LIPA children. The Fabric District and The Liverpool Oratory May 2018

Revolutionary Nature is a major three year public art project in collaboration with artist-in-residence at LIPA Primary School, Jayne Seddon, and The Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts school children; ART Labs Research Centre and The Centre for Education Research at LJMU; National Museums Liverpool; Friends of St. James’s Gardens; and the Eden Project.

A wildflower garden is being created in The Oratory grounds next to the Anglican Cathedral. The children are drawing the garden and its growth as they create it, while learning about the cyclical time of natural systems, biodiversity and ecology, referenced back to Guy Debord’s Society of the Spectacle. ‘Under the Grit the Garden’ is an adaption of the famous 1968 Situationist slogan, Under the Cobblestones the Beach.

The process of documenting this transformation via drawing, with a focus upon thinking and learning through drawing, resonates with many thoughts around pedagogy and sustainability in education, with a focus upon connecting children with the natural world and the use of fine motor skills in their development and learning.

Revolutionary Nature will be a collaborative drawing event for LightNight 2018. We will celebrate the children’s observational studies, made over spring, with a workshop and a show of drawings and paintings placed in The Oratory grounds. Children and their families will work with lead artist, Jayne Seddon, to create new site responsive drawings. Join us, look at the artwork, and make a drawing, if you wish.