Love Letters from Fandom
A short documentary & participatory workshop project centring SEND learners on the theme of Love
In Spring 2021 I was selected as a Creative Fellow for the I AM Festival of SEND learning, facilitated by A New Direction. LOVE LETTERS FROM FANDOM was the culmination of that work.
Working with two outstanding SEND specialist schools, I designed and faciliated a series of workshops, whilst directing and editing a short film about the process. The workshops were designed to foster self-expression and communication between learners, using the concept of fandom as an entry point to talk about Love in terms comfortable and familiar to them. We used the workshops to create artworks expressing their fandom, then created a "correspondence" between pairs of students in the two schools.
This call and response provoked some remarkable responses in our pupils, all of whom have profound learning difficulties. We were overjoyed and amazed at the focus and enthusiasm in their responses.
The finished film was screened in June 2021 as part of the I AM Festival.
Companies
A New Direction
- Charity