Creative Partnerships is a government-funded national initiative, established to develop schoolchildren’s potential, ambition, creativity and imagination. It supports sustainable partnerships between schools, creative and cultural organisations and individuals. I was commissioned to do some work in a South London school for children with severe learning difficulties and autism.

Our project was to facilitate the creation of individual photographic artworks with each pupil. There were also some group ‘compositions’. Using a torch in totally blacked out improvised studio, each pupil ‘painted’ their own design in space with a light beam during a 10-15 second exposure. An aspect of their engagement with what they were doing was captured in an instant with a single burst of a flashgun. It required from the pupils a degree of coordination, creative self expression, self discipline, consideration of others, and repeated generous acknowledgement of each other’s efforts.

I and my assistants arrived on the first day with good heart but rather limited expectations. We had energetic assistance with general communication and setting up from two dance students based at the nearby Laban Centre. The Laban students had been working on movement with the pupils for some time and were able to make a number of very useful suggestions and practical contributions.

The pupils’ responses to the project were remarkably creative and enthusiastic. We set it up so that each pupil ‘performed’ their light painting with all of the others looking on, and each child got an enthusiastic round of applause from all the other pupils at the end of their two ‘performances’.

They seemed genuinely excited and rather pleased with themselves. To my great and pleasant surprise, at the end of the overall session several pupils came up to me to thank me. They’d so obviously enjoyed themselves. I was quite choked. I had not realised either that it had meant so much to them, or that they had understood so much about the process and our respective roles.

It got even more emotional when we returned to the school to show them the results. The idea was that we would ‘help’ them decide which images of each of their individual efforts would be chosen for a wall display of 10” x 8” prints. Again, I was surprised at the degree to which the children were able to identify themselves on the contact sheets, take such pride in their own efforts, express clearly reasoned preferences, and – perhaps most heartwarmingly – be so complimentary of each others efforts.

To summarise. Experiencing their responses I am clear that it worked for the pupils. Many of the resulting images are fascinating and beautiful. The big surprise was seeing what a very rich, rewarding and moving experience the process provided for me and my assistants.

I would love to create other projects, either at that school or further afield.

A postscript. I have a friend who is a senior educationalist in Oxford with considerable experience in the field of learning difficulties etc. She speculated that one of the reasons why the project may have worked so well for these particular children may have been the fact that they were being creative and communicative in almost complete darkness, and thus relieved of a lot of the sensory input and challenge that normally affects their social interaction. Who knows?