Summer Arts Boredom Busters – Raise Your Voice

24 August 2021

As the new academic year approaches, make the most of the last flush of free time and encourage young people to establish their voice outside of the curriculum.

This week’s Summer Arts Boredom Buster features resources and activities to get young people thinking about the wider world and their place within it, alongside matters of care and concern that affect us all.

Mirror, mirror

A good way to start developing the confidence to advocate for change is through reflective study. Looking inwards and asking questions about how you see the world and the world you want to see are the stepping-stones to a place of well-considered creative activism.

The Design Museum have produced an activity pack based on their former Designer-In-Residence Alix Bizet’s project ‘Hair By Hood’ that uses personal identity as a springboard to imagine and design a brand new museum.

Asserting what you stand for can be overwhelming without a steer. Thankfully, The Roundhouse’s Manifesto of Me provides a clear and accessible step-by-step guide, from working out aims to taking direct action.

And to round things off, check out Heart n Soul’s ‘Hope’ themed activity packs to shake off structure and embrace more freeform optimism (Hope Potato, anyone?!)

All things being eco

It’s not easy being green. But with over 220 million tonnes of waste generated in the UK over the course of one year (2019), there is always scope to do more to minimise the damage caused by overconsumption and pollution.

Battersea Art Centre’s Create Course is filled with fun and refreshingly uncomplicated sessions to develop your instincts, sense of perspective, and general curiosity – with Session Four dedicated to the art of reviewing, repurposing and reusing household objects that would otherwise be thrown away.

With Transform Our World’s Learning From Home resource directory young people can access the widest variety of climate action and awareness tools – from interactive lessons to campaign challenges.

And to connect the local with the global, download the Power Pack: Climate Emergency. The brainchild of Serpentine Artists-In-Residence, Jacob V Joyce and Rudy Loewe, this activity pack serves as a powerful call-to-action with creative prompts for effecting change at an individual as well as at collective level, and a poignant reminder of the too-readily-erased work of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour) environmental activists.

Art from the heart

Young people have the right to be seen and heard. And while there are now countless high-tech ways to channel your voice and insights for maximum visibility and impact, the humble world of crafting still offers so much to consider and to try out.

The Royal Academy has put together a handy illustrated guide to making a protest poster, which is the perfect complement to the banner, flag and pennant-making toolkits from PROCESSIONS – the suffrage-commemorative strand of the 14-18 NOW centenary arts programme.

And if you can’t decide which medium of craft expression is quite right for you – whether it be collage or sewing, zine-making or self-portraiture – check out the Craftivism resources from the Making For Change Expo. Recognising the importance of experimentation and trial-and-error in any activist or advocate’s journey, these resources allow for a wide variety of skills to be built, adapted, and applied to both specific (‘Explore Community’) and non-specific contexts (‘Share Your Voice’).

Go further

Still looking for more ideas? Check out the resources we’ve developed to unite social history with the Five Creative Habits of Mind:

• Speeches That Changed The World – Explore key historic figures through their speeches
• Culture, Community and Activism – Exploring Black British History in London

Where next?

More Boredom buster blogs

Keeping Creative at home blogs

teaching for creativity

Lead image created using resources from Freepik