We organised and curated the 2024 Art Matters Exhibition which took place at University of East London UEL between the 3rd and 13th of July. 45 education providers 29 primary, 16 secondary, 1 FE and one Saturday Club took part in the 2024 Art Matters exhibition, which featured artworks from over 3000 young people and attracted an audience of 827 people. The following Schools, Sixth Form Colleges and Saturday clubs took part Primary schools Britannia Village Primary School, Curwen Prinary School, Eastbrook Primary School, Ellen Wilkinson Primary School, Elmhurst Primary School, Essex Primary School, Glade Primary School, Grange Primary school, Halsville Primary School, Kaizen Primary School, Keir Hardie Primary School, Nelson Primary School, New City Primary School, North Beckton Primary School, Park Primary School, Portway Primary School, Ranelagh Primary School, Sandringham Primary School, Scott Wilkie Primary School, Southern Road Primary School, St Edwards Primary School, Stratford Manor Primary, Vicarage Primary School, West Ham Church School Secondary schools Barking Abbey School, Eastbrook School, Eko Pathways School, Kingsford community school, Langdon Academy, Little Ilford School, Plashet, Robert Clack School of Science, Sarah Bonnell School, School 21, St Angelas, St Bonventure School, Willowfield School Sixth Form Colleges and Saturday clubs New Vic College London College of Fashion Saturday Club We ran workshops during the exhibition within the University of East Londons Docklands venue that were attended by 210 children from 7 Newham primary schools. Over the two-week exhibition, the visiting schools created their own work inspired by the contributions on display. We ran three primary and three secondary teachers network meetings for Art and Design teachers from East London Schools during the 2022-23 academic year. In addition to coordinating and developing ideas for the Art Matters exhibition, teachers took part in practical sessions at the Whitechapel gallery that included looking at the Zineb Sedira exhibition, Dreams have no titles. The final meeting of the year used the exhibition as means to discuss, share teaching ideas and discuss good practice. We ran a programme entitled Our Stories in collaboration with the VA East during which 45 young people took part in an Our Stories creative workshops with the Home on me collective in two schools as well as a photoshoot that used UELs specialist photography studios. Large prints of these images were made into posters to promote the exhibition both within schools and across social media. An installation of this work formed a centrepiece of the summer exhibition. On the 15th June we ran creative workshops at The Great Get Together, a community event held at the Queen Elizabeth Park in Newham, East London. Approximately 200 people took part over the course of the day. We shared a timeline for the 2023-24 academic year that describes key dates for network meetings, steering group meetings and the exhibition with all partners. We are building upon a successful collaborative working relationship with VA East and continue to work closely with the Whitechapel Gallery. We are grateful for the continued support of University of East London and University of the Arts London.

We have regular strategic and operational discussions with key people in primary, secondary and university settings in addition to cultural partners and local authority cultural leads about the future of Art Matters. This happens through termly primary and secondary teacher’s network meetings. We seek regular feedback from teachers about what content they require from CPD sessions. We collect and analyse feedback from visitors to the annual exhibition. 354 visitors filled out a visitor feedback form. 75 % of visitors were below 20 years of age. From this group 96% reported a positive or very positive response to the exhibition. Visitors responded to the ‘What did you enjoy the most?’ with a huge variety of answers, many of which described the positive experience of being able to walk around the exhibition freely looking at the artwork on display and making their own drawings in response to what they saw.

No remuneration was received

No transfer of assets other than for full consideration