HMDT Music’s E Project sets out to empower, enrich, equalise, expand, embed, engage, and evaluate through the creation of an arts-embedded curriculum focusing on themes and issues of inclusion, diversity, racial inequality and anti-racism. Over three years primary schools in Stoke on Trent, Lytham St Anne’s, Luton and Hackney are receiving drama, art and music workshops delivered by guest artists who link curriculum topics and HMDT projects such as Trench Brothers, Shadowball, Hear Our Voice, STEM Sisters and An Invite from the Queen, in order to build a bank of resources for long term use.
In recent workshops, our workshop leaders have explored themes of racism, Antisemitism and discrimination with the participating E Project schools. Through the lens of Hear Our Voice, students have explored the experiences of Jewish children during the Holocaust, what it would have felt like to leave their home behind and move to the ghetto, and the resilience they showed when faced with moving to the concentration camps. During this workshop, students created portraits relating to identity and the appalling treatment of people stripped of their sense of self during the Holocaust in addition to techniques such as automatic drawing, drawing continuously to poetry and music.
One of our workshop leaders, Sophie Gresswell, expressed that:
“The artworks pupils made during a poem reading of To Belzec, written by a child during the Holocaust, were very moving. In the world we live in it can be rare for us to take a calm moment like this to reflect, the artworks the classes made show the importance of art in processing our emotions and experiences. One teacher commented that she would use the technique again in her lessons, and I heard a pupil say they would draw more after the session”.
In another recent workshop, students explored Floella Benjamin’s early life in Trinidad, giving thought to her home, cultural celebrations, and schooling. As a class, they then created a soundscape to accompany her journey to England, focusing on her hopes and fears and exploring the differences between her expectations of England and the reality of the life and the racism she faced here.
More here > The E Project
