On Friday 1st December, Year Three took a trip to the Tate Modern to immerse themselves in the world of art. Having spent the past term exploring colour, sketching and painting techniques in our art lessons, it was a great opportunity to consider some of the world’s most famous pieces of contemporary art in an extraordinary venue.
We began by exploring parts of the permanent collection, spending time in each gallery considering what we liked about the pieces, how we thought they were created and comparing the techniques used to those we had practised in class. We each picked our favourite piece, though it was often hard to pick just one!
After lunch we took our sketchbooks to the Turbine Hall to focus on the awe-inspiring three-part installation by Ghanaian sculptor El Anatsui, Behind the Red Moon. Featuring three vast, separate parts created from recycled bottles caps and metal fragments that had been manipulated then connected together by hand with copper wire. It tells a story of a journey over hundreds of years, of a global entanglement of relationships and geographies, coming from a dark past and continuing to affect us all. We enjoyed learning more about the meaning of each piece, as well as spotting minute detail and patterns in the final part of the piece, Act III: The Wall.
We had a great time seeing such a variety of pieces and thinking more deeply about what we were looking at. It was interesting to hear the opinions on and reactions to some of the works, particularly the more contemporary, obscure or surreal pieces. Having barely scraped the surface of the huge number of artworks on display at the gallery, we left full of inspiration for our own work in school and eager to see more!
