Exeter Scrapstore
Exeter Scrapstore’s project focuses on building understanding about place, materials, routes and connections. As a part of the circular economy, being responsive to what is here and what we can do here are fundamental to the Scrapstore, offering scope for considering the roles we all play in a more sustainable life.
The project will provide a series of creative workshops for school teachers, educators, community builders and activists - this community represents the activators and instigators of potential future change, through those that they work with. Materials budgets are being cut, along with non-arts teachers and community activists being increasingly required to deliver creative activity. As the regional provider of bright, engaging and diverse post-industrial and post-commercial materials for creative play, Scrapstore is in a good place to help shape a solution.
The project will start with an intro session for a roster of creatives, to develop the workshops that they will each deliver - using shared exploration of materials, conversations about process and skill-swapping to shape a broad-based programme. This will lead onto a creative making workshop programme of six free sessions for School Teachers, Educators, Artists and Community Activators, utilising the excellent variety of high quality resources Exeter Scrapstore offers.
This project is designed to inform and educate about the creative use of waste so it can be taken directly back to the communities and young people these practitioners work with. It will be shaped to respond to the locality as seen through the Scrapstore and also look at the wider concerns of waste generation and the circular economy:
It will equip educators with information, processes and techniques to benefit both their work and personal development.
It will promote how to design projects that minimise waste generation, and give ideas on how to recycle mixed materials efficiently through all stages of a project.
It will inspire participants on how to transform different sorts of waste into resources, maximising re-use.
It will show resourcefulness and efficiency of materials - a keen priority for the Education sector and current cost of living crisis.
Teachers are very keen to find out more on how they can produce sustainably themed projects on a low budget, especially linked to the curriculum. Scrapstore is ideally placed for this, having the expertise and resources in-house to design projects that inspire and encourage open-ended thinking, but also tie in with curriculum needs.