Based in  Cardonald Community Flat, Glasgow and the Oasis Centre, Dumfries

Products: a film and 2 murals

Duration: 3 months

Participants: young people from Glasgow and young people from Dumfries. 

Through discussion with some of the young people we worked with over the summer and based on our current resources we decided to consolidate our skills/resources etc and focus on a second Scotland-based project this autumn:  working in the media of film and mural, the young people in Glasgow and in Dumfries will continue collaborating and sharing creative ideas on the themes they’ve chosen.

In Glasgow, we are now working in partnership with the Govan and Craigton Integration Network  and our workshops are based in the GCIN Community Flat in Cardonald (South West of Glasgow).  In Dumfries we are continuing to work with the Oasis Centre.

The Film phase will take approximately 2 months and the mural phase will take one month.   Keep an eye on the Glasgow and Dumfries pages for updates and media!

Digital Mural Project: Edinburgh (CHV) vs Nablus (PWWSD). 

Themes: ways of life/ freedom.

Duration: 3 weeks

Description: Young people from Edinburgh in Scotland and Nablus in the West Bank worked to create a digital mural that deals with and expresses their ideas about their ways of life (Scotland) and freedom (Palestine) using various medias, from photography, to painting, to sculpture.

After making contact with each other and exchanging questions about each others lives and communities, students began exploring their chosen themes through various medias.  Once they had created a variety of different images, sculptures and photos individually each group worked together combine the image into a large collage.  Each collage was uploaded as multimedia image.  The 2 finished murals are being digitally glued together : Scotland’s half is viewable above.  You can see the groups work process on their branch sites, Nablus and Edinburgh.

]]> http://unfinishedpictureproject.org/2012/04/15/the-digital-mural-project/feed/ 0 minkaart Edinburgh digital mural http://unfinishedpictureproject.org/2012/04/15/take-me-with-you-travelling-trunk-project/ http://unfinishedpictureproject.org/2012/04/15/take-me-with-you-travelling-trunk-project/#comments Sun, 15 Apr 2012 11:28:59 +0000 minkaart http://unfinishedpictureproject.org/?p=1466 ]]>

Location: Glasgow and Dumfries, Scotland

Duration: 1 month

Theme: Journeys, homes and transitions

A short collaborative arts  project launched during Refugee Week 2011, Take Me with you aims to provide an opportunity through which young Asylum Seekers and their peers can explore and share experiences of home and transition, increasing social awareness of the concerns and issues young asylum seekers face.  We hope to facilitate this exploration through 2 workshops in which participants collaborate to transform an old steamer trunk into a travelling mixed-media art piece for public display: the art piece will be collaged and filled to represent the themes the young people have explored.  There may also be the opportunity to create an accompanying multimedia film around the same themes.  Within the workshops young people will work alongside art/media practitioners – with experience working with vulnerable young people – to create collaborative group work.    The project will potentially be part of a wider project in which similar explorations from similar groups around the world will be shared online and we are looking for groups to develop this project with in other locations.

Locations: Selkirk (Rowlands) vs Nablus (PWWSD)

Theme: Ways of Life, past and present.  

Duration: 4-5 weeks (Approx)

Rowlands Selkirk and the Young People in Nablus are initiating a short film project this summer which will explore a special day of historic significance  in their community.  Both groups will learn research and film skills whilst exploring their community history whilst also engaging in the history of their partner group.

Locations: Minnesota (Bluesky) vs Balata (YCC).

Theme: Human Rights and Wrongs

Duration: 5 weeks

Description: Youths from Minnesota and Balata in the West Bank embarked on the mission of creating a film that deals with the issue of human rights from their different perspectives, incorporating multimedia, interviews and their own backing music.  After making contact with each other and exchanging questions on the concept of human rights.  All students interviewed people in their community as part of the film and then students from the Minnesota group chose specific activities for the completion of the film: one student created the soundtrack, others created paintings and photographs for the multimedia introduction, and one talented student took on the final editing of the film.

Click, then click again, to enlarge.

The SOUL -- Seeking Out Understanding and Learning -- canvas mural in the Garfield Community Center computer lab. Photo courtesy Alma Khasawnih.

Greetings from Seattle on this unique, sunny day!

UPP Seattle, aka SUPP, finished our fall/winter project with a bang. Our SOUL spray paint canvas mural is now hanging proudly in the RecTech lab at the Garfield Community Center. The teens worked hard to design the mural and conceive of the SOUL notion.

The fall/winter project was an awesome learning experience and we’re really excited to establish a new project based on what we’ve discovered. Spring is in the air now and it’s a great time to plant the seeds for an exciting project fusing technology and creativity. Stay tuned for details!

This January sees two new Full Spring Projects getting off the ground.  The projects, will link 2 youth groups in Scotland and 2 youth groups in Palestine through themed research and creation, online blogging/social networking, and the public art creation.

In the first part of the project our young people will learn selected media and art skills and will go on to produce art work around a particular theme (selected by the young people). The art and media produced in workshops will be uploaded onto our UPP network and shared with their partner groups, prompting a cross-cultural dialogue between partnered groups.   The second part of the project will involve the collaborative process of developing an image and choosing a location, before going on to create the murals..

The hope is that the students will be able to communicate directly and creatively with each other, sharing stories about their own lives, their attitudes, and their impressions from the project.

Following the forum sessions in which both groups introduced themselves and chose the themes/skills they’d work with, creating began!  Over the last 2 weeks the groups have been creating art work on the theme of “Our way of life: Past, present, future”.  Stay posted for images of the work they are creating.

The spring projects represent our largest international collaborations to date and we are looking forward to watching dialogues and relationships grow between the young people in these very different communities.  We are also excited to see what kind of public art work will be produced as a final outcome of the project: the possibilities are endless!

 The project will be delivered by a group of art practitioners who are all new to the Unfinished Picture Project, they are bringing to the project a diverse range of skills and fresh enthusiasm for what we do: for this reason we’re really excited to see what comes out of these projects over the next few months.   You can read more about our new team members on the people page.

The Scottish branches of the project will be funded by Awards for All however our Palestinian groups are reliant on funds raised through events and donations.

If you would like to donate to this project or would be interested in supporting the project by running a creative fund-raising event please get in touch for more information or go to http://unfinishedpictureproject.org/support-upp/.

UPP’s Spring projects, based in Cardonald and Shettleston, are funded by Awards for All. We are very grateful for their support which allows us to deliver these projects.

Following the ‘Take Me With You’ project we ran over the summer of 2011 as part of Refugee Week, the Unfinished Picture Project Youth Group became residents of the Tarfside Community Flat where they have been working hard on a film and mural every Saturday. The girls selected ‘youth opportunities as their theme: through their chosen mediums they have been working to highlight some of the issues young people face in the current global climate.

The girls embrace the glasgow rain whilst out doing field research for their film and mural

For the film the girls have been attending city-wide marches and community events and interviewing local activists and young people in the area. In 2012 they will work to complete their film with a couple more interviews and lots of editing!

In December the girls began planning a piece of public art work, which they will display on the side of Block 40, Tarfside Oval (below the community flat).  The building is one of many “iconic” high-rises which defines Glasgow’s skyline: a skyline which will undergo a significant change over the next few years with many of these buildings coming down.  In January the girls finalised their design for the mural which celebrates the local community but also challenges some of its issues.  In February they started work and will be in painting mode for the next few weeks! Stay posted for photos!

One of our students said this of the process:

“The idea of this mural is to paint a wall just right under where we meet for the planning of the mural. The young people involved in the mural came up with the idea of addiction and neglect which will be painted on the wall once. The group also gave in a lot of ideas about how to represent this theme in the mural to make it simple to understand but yet to pass a big message across.”

We are excited about our progress on the mural and welcome any support with it.  This project is currently unfunded and therefore totally reliant on donations – if you’d like to help out click here.

Here’s one of our participants, Lisa, introducing herself:

This project has not been directly partnered with any other group but we welcome parallel projects on this theme and creative engagement with our young people from other community groups.  If there are any girls in the area who would like to join the group they are more than welcome.  We meet every Saturday from 11am-1pm at the community Flat in Tarfside Oval, Cardonald.

Joty Chopra came from Swat Valley in Pakistan to Cardonald in Scotland with her family where she now lives.  Eager to contribute to her local community Joty got involved with the Tarfside Community Flat and this is how she found out about the Unfinished Picture Project.  From June to August 2011 Joty participated in the Take me With You, project, a collaborative art project linking young refugees in Glasgow with young ‘Doonhamers’ (natives of Dumfries).  The project involved a number of face to face meetings and the transformation of a ‘travelling trunk’ which conveyed the young people’s ideas about the concepts of journey and home.

After the summer Joty began a college course in Journalism whilst continuing to be involved in the ‘Wall and Screen Project’  aimed at exploring issues of youth opportunity in the cardonald community through the mediums of film and mural.  This project is on-going.  Joty’s passion however lay in Journalism.

“I have been working with the UPP since summer 2011 and I find it really great. I get the chance to meet loads of new people and learn about different cultures and experiences.” Joty Chopra, 18

In January 2012 a new voluntary post became available with the Dialogue 4 Destitution project, to create and coordinate media as part of the ‘work-in-campaign’.  Joty was the ideal candidate for this role and has risen to the challenge with great willingness and the capacity to contribute a great deal.  Joty is always a engaged and creative in her approach, whether as a participant or as a volunteer and it’s been really enjoyable to have her involvement in the Glasgow projects.