Artswork & young people create kelp videos
We spoke to Beccy East, Creative Producer of Artswork, about their recent project working with young people locally to create videos to showcase the work of kelp recovery in Sussex
Tell us a bit about the project
It's part of Artswork’s Cultural Changemakers Programme, which works in communities across targeted areas in the South East. We work with children and young people to co-design projects that aim to impact and improve their communities.
One project in each area each year is ecology focussed. In this instance, we chose the Sussex Kelp Recovery project because it is local to Littlehampton and Bognor Regis, its work is largely invisible to most of us and because it’s a rare story of hope.
Three primary schools in Littlehampton and Rustington took part in the project. We connected with Sussex Wildlife Trust, who led a hands-on visit to the local beach where the children identified and collected evidence of kelp and some of the animals that benefit from it, as well as creating art out of natural materials found on the beach. Local diving group Sussex Underwater also brought their great knowledge of underwater ecology to the young people. Chichester University film and fine art students joined us to support the art-form skills we wanted the project to pass on. The Windmill Theatre organised a great screening event.
We worked with the MAT (Multi Academy Trust) and chose film making for this project, because few children had the chance to experience this at their primary schools. The young people who led it did the rest!
What was the process?
We ran a workshop programme over five weeks in 2024 with a lead group of 15 Year Five and Six students from the schools, who learned about film making, about the Kelp Recovery project and worked intensively with us to develop five storyboards in groups. These were then used to commission artists and plan with teachers who could help wider groups of young people (over 700 in total), turn their ideas into films, bringing a suite of skills into play from stop motion to micro cinema, foley, acting, dance, costume design and green screen processes.
What ‘journey’ of learning did this project take the young people on?
Their starting point was learning about the Kelp Recovery Project. The young people then explored how to develop and refine their key ideas, tastes and aesthetics. Then they had the chance to learn an enormous range of film industry skills, including fine art / production design, costuming, prop making for animation, sound effects and sound tracking, as well as how to run a productive set! I think getting to see their work come to full production right through to premiere on the big screen was a powerful bit of learning about their own strengths and agency as well.
The young people interviewed one another at the end of the process – here are a few of their words -
'It’s helped me understand how bad things are for kelp'
'It’s helped me understand the situation going on at the beach and how I can help the kelp to come back'
'The project has helped me learn about how kelp is important because I never really knew about it'.
'I learned how to use my voice and stand out. And how important it is to save the kelp.'
'I would like to tell the people in charge of my community how important it is to save our ocean and not disturb any sea life and let everything live naturally in the ocean. And also try to inspire them to do any tiny little jobs - if loads of people do loads of little things it can change the world massively.'
'This project has helped me understand the importance of the ocean and working as a team'