'Plastic Works' Knowledge Exchange Pitch
A look again at our winning pitch to Oxford House to develop Plastic Works in 2014
Project Boondock’s ‘Plastic Works’ will involve a series of participant-led workshops leading to a final promenade performance in July 2014.
We will exchange new knowledge about sustainability at Oxford House and the local area and share practical skills in puppet-making.
For our Knowledge Exchange at Oxford House we proposed a series of workshops creating puppets from plastic bags and other recyclables, culminating in a promenade performance on Bethnal Green Road.
A sharing of recycling, stories and puppet-making skills using discarded plastic…
We will be running puppet-making workshops and invite participants to bring with them recyclables as making materials. To kick of our R&D this December 2013 for the project we have been working with young people at the Rose Lipman building in Hackney.
Our process follows three simple steps: Gather, Remake Share
We will host a market stall on Bethnal Green Road as a forum for materials to be gathered and displayed. We will remake the materials into puppets and on the final weekend share the creations in a parade down Bethnal Green Road, led by a giant puppet constructed from materials donated by stall-holders.
The first stage of the process, gathering materials, will be run from a market stall as a base to gather materials from. The stall-holder will be a puppet, just like this one. The aim is to encourage participation in the workshops and help us gather materials.
This will be Oxford House’s own ‘Plastic Works’ Market stall where passers by can donate their own plastic bags and other plastic recyclable materials. This will give us visibility and an opportunity to start conversations about recycling and engage more people with our activity.
The stall will act as an information point, sharing knowledge and facts about recycling, ways of being more ‘green’ and informing people about the workshops. It will feed directly into the second stage of our process, as all materials will be used in our workshops.
The original idea of the Knowledge Exchange came from Cab Drivers sharing their knowledge of the local area. As Project Boondock our knowledge exchange springboards from learning about sustainability through making. We will also teach new skills in puppet-making using discarded plastic.
The second stage of our activity is ‘Re-making’
Workshops will use materials brought by participants and those traded on our stall. Participants taking part in the workshops at Oxford House will make puppets and other creations from materials.
Which leads us into ‘Sharing’:
After a period of workshop making, a giant puppet will be made from extra materials gathered from community groups, young people and locals to Oxford . We will invite participants, local residents, families, market-stall holders and anyone who would like to join us for a final promenade performance down Bethnal Green High street.
The giant puppet made by materials given by stall-holders will lead a parade involving workshop participants and the local community. Everyone can share their creativity and new skills learnt during the ‘Plastic Works’ knowledge exchange. There will then be a final display of the creations in Oxford House.
Our overall activity includes a visible presence on the market, community-led workshops and a final parade, to build relationships with local residents and encourage active engagement with Oxford House. We also hope to have raised awareness of issues relating to sustainability and recycling for participants, audiences and people in the local area.
In September 2012 we have shared initial test puppet designs with market stall holders and the passing public on Bethnal Green Road Our puppet met and was introduced to children, market-stall holders and the passing public as we made a journey from Oxford House through Bethnal Green market. Here you can see the great response…
Our puppet was introduced to a market stall holder. They got on very well! Everybody liked our puppet’s cheerful eyes and orange beard. We found that lots of people was eager to shake his hand.
As we moved along Bethnal Green Road people were keen to know talk to us and find out about the puppet. A few people had heard of Oxford House and were curious to know more about family-friendly activity and puppet-making workshops.
One particular family were very happy to meet us and both girls here took a leading role performing with our giant puppet after they had been introduced. We explained our puppet had been made of fully recycled materials and showed how he moved.
We introduced young people to the simplicity of making theatrical creatures using recycled materials and showed how the joints were made and how to move the head and arms. The parents of these girls expressed a particular interest in any future puppet workshops so we have our first recruits!
Our main Project Aims are:
1. Knowledge Exchange: sharing information about Sustainability and recycling.
2. practical skills in puppet-making using discarded materials. We aim to give people new knowledge about creative re-making using plastic.
3. Finally, we aim to engage new audiences with Oxford House, in particular Families and Children, Market-stall holders and local residents, raising awareness of Oxford House and their programme of events.
So, to sum up, Project Boondock’s ‘Plastic Works’ will involve a series of participant-led workshops leading to a final promenade performance. We will exchange new knowledge about sustainability at Oxford House and the local area and share practical skills in puppet-making. In closing we have a short film of our pilot run to share, we hope you enjoy it!
Today we are presenting a PechaKucha at Oxford House in Bethnal Green!
We are proposing an idea for a participatory performance project to take place as part of the 'Knowledge Exchange' Festival in 2014.
This new project idea is called 'Plastic Works' and it is part of our ongoing research and practice in using recycled materials, currently we are focussing on plastic.
An overview of the pitch idea is below:
We are proposing a series of workshops creating puppets from plastic bags and other recyclables, culminating in a promenade performance on Bethnal Green road.
Our process is three-fold and will be divided into:
Our aim is to engage local Bethnal Green residents, market stall holders and families.
We did a small pilot of the 'sharing' aspect last Saturday when we took one of our giant plastic bag puppets on a stroll through the market.
Here's our puppet on a journey from Oxford House:
You can check out the response here:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oHn2YLvDMk
Fingers crossed people like the idea!
theartofmadeline
romaincrisis
kianamaiart
andulkaphoto
gummygunk