TANIWHA THE DRAGON IN STOP START ANIMATION

The mythical story of Taniwha the Dragon has travelled with us over the past year as we have explored the history of the hidden River Fleet alongside local children, young people and adults, as part of our Voices of the Water project. Together we have wondered and marvelled at what the river once was before being buried. A place to bathe, a place to heal, a place to travel across, and then as London grew and more waste was produced, a place for rubbish to be dumped in and eventually to be hidden from sight. Together we imagine and create and think of the possibilities of what can be done to bring Taniwha back, alongside the fish and the trees that she needs to survive.

One group we’ve worked with since the beginning of our Voices of the Water project exploring the magic of water, is with children from Frank Barnes School for Deaf Children. We have gone on a learning journey side by side exploring water through movement, dance, performance, clay, paint and land art. In the summer term, we brought together children from Frank Barnes with children from King’s Cross Academy, to create a Stop Start Animation in collaboration with Nina Gebaur visually creating the story of Taniwha to make it accessible to deaf children. 

The children worked in pairs and small groups, each trialling new ways to communicate with each other, to create story boards, to draw and paint the different characters in the story and the landscapes we encounter and cut the shapes out. Everyone learned to take pictures and move the characters along to make a film from their creations.

We are very happy with the animation that has been created.

And as always, we are even happier about the process of making the animation and the way that the two schools integrated thanks to the arrangement of tables, group activities, games and wellbeing activities such as mindfulness practices, which they took in turns to lead. Through this process, we wanted to promote two core values of Global Generation: inclusion and acceptance. With each session, the children’s confidence grew, they engaged more deeply with the story, they explored different creative techniques, they learned new skills and formed friendships. Children learned to get to know each other and to value each other through using their bodies and expressions instead of just words, finding new ways to connect beyond our differences, breaking down barriers and promoting understanding and acceptance.

One boy from Frank Barnes also found that he could communicate through stop start animation by sharing his stories in a way that he hadn’t done before. By our last session he had created 3 of his own stop start animations finding a new creative outlet and skills he hadn’t realised he had.

We are looking forward to more work together over the coming year as we continue to explore our local waters.

Find out more about the Voices of the Water programme here.

Notes from the Garden