Mrs Inkson (Head of Year 6)

This term, Year 6 have been exploring the question ‘What is Art?’

In order to answer this question, the girls have explored art in depth. They started by thinking about art through the ages – How has art changed? What did people value as art during different periods of history? The girls all picked and researched a period of art that interested them and used their new-found knowledge to recreate a picture of the Bedford suspension bridge in the style of art they had researched.

They then moved onto investigating more abstract art and graffiti and found some really strange examples of ‘art’, such as a banana taped to the wall in an art gallery and piles of rubbish arranged to show silhouettes of people. What makes a banana and rubbish art? The girls then spent time looking at examples of graffiti, from looking at quickly spray-painted tags to more elaborate ‘graffiti art’ by artists such as Banksy. They used their skills in writing balanced arguments to explore the question ‘Is Graffiti Art or Vandalism?’

Alongside all of this exciting learning that has been taking place this term an interesting display slowly took shape. On the first day of term, the display was just a blank sheet of white paper with a black marker pen hanging next to it. After a few days someone decided to add their mark to the corner. This slowly built to almost every member of the school adding their own ‘graffiti’ to the board. No one really knew though what the point was. It was only when bright red graffiti asking the question ‘is This Art?’ was added on top did we understand the point. Now Year 6 are busy discussing if this amazing display that they have created is art or not… What do you think?