What do we need to think about when we are shaping workshops? How can we leave space for the unexpected and ensure participants are involved in creative decision-making?

Through this session, Sadie will be taking us through the planning process for designing socially-engaged workshops with vulnerable groups, including practical tips, such as safe-guarding, using challenging materials and developing non-verbal decision-making. Looking in more detail at projects like The Memory Garden, a collaboration with the Kingsley Centre and the Royal Academy of Art communities programme, Sadie will talk through how she developed the garden with a group of learning disabled adults and support workers through trying out methods for co-design and collaboration.

The talk will involve some light participation, such as talking to people next to you and there will be room to ask questions.

Sadie Edginton (b.1985) is an artist with a focus on socially-engaged practice. Through working with other people, she creates projects where the process and methods for working together are often just as important as what is created at the end. Taking the local site and context as a starting point, the projects explore the relationships between the collaborators, their environment and locality. Sadie’s projects include many agents and collaborators, working with museums, galleries, schools and organisations. Recent projects include a memory garden for the Kingsley Centre with the Royal Academy of Arts communities programme, the Plant Procession for The White Cross Street Party and projects for Culpeper Community Garden. Sadie studied Contemporary Art Practice, Public Sphere at the Royal College of Art and Sculpture at Camberwell College of Art and co-led the RCA Social Practice Group from 2019-2023.

About OSC

Open School Creative is a collaboration between BEAF Arts Co and TOSH (The Old School House) to support our community of artists and their artistic development at all stages of their career. OSC events and workshops are for artists interested in collaboration, skills development, community and connection.

Image credits -

Plant Procession, White Cross Street Party, (2022) Photograph credit: Sadie Edginton.

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