Stage One – the Activity Week
 A Story Without End, Leicester - Bombay

 The Activity Week will take place between 29th November until 3rd December 1999. The City Gallery, De Montfort University and Hazel primary School are all venues for the week’s activities.

 The event will be launched with a storytelling performance led by Dr. Vayu Naidu, Artistic Director for Haymarket’s Asian Initiative, which introduces the key theme of architecture and people. Artist Carole Miles will lead the art activities throughout the week which take the story as the starting point to create a miniature city using techniques of printmaking, mosaic and collage.

 The Website
 A website is being led by Chun Hsing, a Taiwanese student at De Montfort University,with the help of Andrej, which will house a ‘virtual’ exhibition of the artworks created and a documentation of the event. Two design students will work with children to communicate with Bombay and exchange verbal and written information and will download digital photographs taken by the photographer, Nick Smith, and input them onto the website throughout the week.

 An exchange of information between Leicester pupils and children from a school in Bombay will take place throughout the week during the morning sessions only due to time differences. Conditions permitting, communication with Bombay will take place daily using the internet. Where technical problems do occur, e-mail, telephone and fax will be used.
 The theme of storytelling will be continued and developed throughout the Activity Week with children bringing their experiences of communicating with Bombay to the rest of the group.

 Involving Parents
 Children from Hazel Primary School will be encouraged to involve their families in the project. Some parents will be helping with sessions throughout the activity week where they will be encouraged to participate with the activities. All parents will be mailed information on the Leicester Bombay Partnership, telling them what their children will be doing during the activity week, inviting them to the open day on Friday 3 December and informing them of the forthcoming exhibition and web site. They will be given the opportunity to be added to a mailing list to receive information on future linked events.
 

 Schedule for the activity week and preparation

 Prior to the Activity Week

 Meetings between Neeti Gupta (project co-ordinator), Helen Rice (City Gallery Education Officer ) and the teachers from Hazel Primary school to plan schedule for the activity week, agree on art activities and plan strategy for invloving the whole school in the project and increasing use of the City Gallery by other staff.

 Meetings between Carole Miles (visual artist), Dr Vayu Naidu (storyteller), Neeti Gupta and Helen Rice to programme art activities, stories and forthcoming exhibition in January 2000. 

 Set up project partners in Bombay

 Set up project partners in Leicester

 Identify possible funds and set budgets

 Design publicity campaign for project

 Mail out press releases to local and national press, including Asian press

 Send letters to parents informing them of their children’s involvement in the project and inviting them to the open day on Friday 3 December 1999.

 Press release to Leicester Schools informing them of the project, web address and forthcoming exhibition, and inviting teachers to the open day on Friday 3 December 1999.

 Secure funding

 Presentation to class : Neeti Gupta and Helen Rice will give a talk to the class prior to the project. They will introduced to the programme of events and tell the children about the people (project partners) they will be working with during the week.

 Local stories and myths, photographs of the City’s people, markets and architecture will be exchanged between Leicester and Bombay using faxes and e-mail.

 Design students to design and create the web site prior to the activity week.

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Day One - Monday 29 November

 10:00 – 12:00 Venue:  The City Gallery, 90 Granby st, Leicester - all day
 10:00 - 10:15 Activity: Launch - Sylvia Wright (Manager, the City Gallery) will  introduce the partnerships and activities for the week. All partners will be  invited to attend. Local press will be invited to this session.
 10:15 - 11:30 Activity: The class of 29 children will work together.
 Dr Vayu Naidu will lead a storytelling performance.
 Verbal exchange - the children will be encouraged to develop characters and important visual references through brainstorming activity and creative processes. 
 11:30 - 12:30 Communication with Bombay will be initiated through telephone, fax and  e-mail.
 Photographer: Documentation digitally and on film.
 12:00 – 1:00 Lunch
 1:00 – 2:30 Venue:  The City Gallery
 Activity: Led by Carole Miles. Transferring ideas raised by the storytelling session into drawings to use a starting point for all continuing art work. Children will create a plan of their imagined city and create a collage of a building of their own. These image will later be colour photocopied and transferred onto muslin hangings. The story told by Vayu will be typed out and printed onto paper in full length, as short paragraphs, in various fonts and sizes to be incorporated into the children’s images.
  J
 

Day Two - Tuesday 30 November

 10:00 – 12:00 Venue: De Montfort University 
 10 children work at with Design Students communicating ideas and imagery with Bombay. The Internet link with India will be established again.
 Photography: Documentation digitally and on colour film.
 Venue: Hazel Primary School
 19 children will work with Carole Miles creating a 1.5m diameter circular mosaic to represent the centre of the imagined city. Children will work in small groups making a plan of their proposed mosaic - they will then meet up to discuss the ideas and choose a final design.
 While the design is being scaled up onto brown paper, the children will make a 3D model of an imagined building relating to the scale of the mosaic ‘city centre’. Materials used will be card, textured papers, photocopies of architectural details.
 12:00 – 1:00 Lunch
 1:00 – 2:30 Venue:  Hazel Primary School - the whole class. 
 The children who had been to De Montfort in the morning will share stories about their experiences with the rest of the group. The class will be asked to consider whether any of the new information has any bearing on the ‘city’ being created.
 The whole group will rotate between working on the mosaic circle, making drawings/stories of the new information and continuing to make buildings for the city.
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Day Three - Wednesday 1 December

 10:00 – 12:00 Venue: De Montfort University 
 10 different children working with Design Students communicating ideas and imagery with Bombay.
 Venue: Hazel Primary School
 19 children working with Carole Miles. Children will work in pairs on a piece of MDF board
 12:00 – 1:00 Lunch
 1:00 – 2:30 Venue: Hazel Primary School
 The children who had been to De Montfort in the morning will share stories about their experiences with the rest of the group. All children will continue working with the visual artist creating artworks in response to these.
 Photography: Documentation digitally and on film.
J

Day Four - Thursday 2 December

 Visitors to the City Gallery will be given information on what is happening during the workshop, about the activity week, and resulting website and exhibition. They will be invited to join a mailing list to receive free mailings on the exhibition and future linked events.

 9:15 - 10:00 Venue: The whole class will be given a ‘Walk and Talk About Leicester’s  Architecture’ on their way to the City Gallery. Neeti Gupta will lead the  talk, stopping to look at specific buildings and talking about their design  nd function. 
 Photography: Nick Smith, will take digital photographs of the buildings to send to Bombay.
 10:00 – 12:00 Venue: De Montfort University 
 The remaining 9 children work with Design Students communicating ideas and imagery with Bombay.
 Venue: The City Gallery
 20 children will work at The City Gallery with Carole Miles.
 Children will make collographs or lino cuts on an architectural theme. These will be used to make prints (using a professional press) and embossed images on paper, metal foil and clay.
 Photography: Documentation digitally and on film.
 12:00 – 1:00 Lunch
 1:00 – 2:30 Venue: The City Gallery - whole class.
 The children who had been to De Montfort in the morning will share stories about their experiences with the rest of the group. All children will continue working with Carole Miles on work started during the morning session.
J

Day Five - Friday 3 December

 10:00 – 12:00 Venue: The City Gallery – school only available for morning session.  Continuation of embossing into metal foil and clay. Completion of  artworks.
 12:00 – 1:00 Lunch
 1:00 – 4:00 Venue: The City Gallery. 
 Web site is completed
 Parents, school governors, and people of Leicester are invited to share experience with children and students. Feedback and discussion for exhibition in January 2000 as well as discussing what has been achieved and sharing common experiences. A display of some of the children’s artworks, textual information on the project week, exhibition and aims, a computer based slide show of digital documentary photographs of the weeks activities and the internet site will be set up in the gallery. This will serve as a taster for the main exhibition in January 2000.
 4:00 - 5:00 Venue: The City Gallery
  Dr Vayu Naidu will close the activity week with a story which responds  to the week’s activities and the artworks that have been created.
J