Families enjoy summer fun with Swindon Museum and Art Gallery
A team of superhero families recruited from every corner of Swindon have spent the summer completing creative challenges to help save the world with art.
Published: Thursday, 3rd September 2020
At the start of the summer, Swindon Museum and Art Gallery, based on Bath Road, launched its free Art on Tour Summer Programme, designed to support families across Swindon with creative activities at home.
A team of families was invited to become Families-in-Residence, completing secret art missions armed with only enthusiasm and paint-brushes.
These secret art agents received art resource boxes from partners Swindon Children’s Scrapstore, alongside weekly online resources and support. In return, they have helped test the gallery’s huge range of free learning and activity resources inspired by Swindon’s collection of modern British art.
Another team of families joined the Summer Club for art adventurers, completing weekly art adventures from surrealist drawing to outdoor art.
Swindon residents have also been getting creative with the gallery’s Creative Sparks social media campaign. A daily creative idea published on social media inspired artistic responses from collage to crochet. The project was supported by the gallery’s Young Photographer, Rose Russell, who provided a photo each day to inspire participants.
The Summer Programme is part of Swindon Museum and Art Gallery’s Art on Tour project. Supported by Swindon Borough Council, Art on Tour aims to bring Swindon’s impressive art collection to a wider audience across the town.
The Art on Tour programme was established to provide inspiring art engagement and outreach to Swindon schools and communities. The gallery hopes to be able to offer the outreach programme again very soon but over recent months, the project has turned its attention to supporting communities, schools and families online.
Mags Parker, Learning Officer for Art on Tour, said: “We have been so pleased with the numbers of families joining us on our summer art adventures and we are immensely proud of all our families. They have produced some incredible artwork and helped us to develop our resources and engagement programme for the future.
“The Summer Programme has brought so much creativity and joy at a difficult time, and we look forward to developing our work with families across Swindon over the next year.”
The Swindon Collection of modern British art is a significant resource. It comprises over 600 artworks, including three Turner Prize winners, and is acknowledged to be one of the most nationally significant collections outside London.
The collection covers 140 years of Modern Art and includes household names like L.S Lowry, Lucian Freud, Grayson Perry, Henry Moore, Ben Nicholson, Michael Craig-Martin, Howard Hodgkin, Frank Auerbach, and Richard Long.