Group Show: The Orchard Lyceum Students

Part One: Marina’s Final Selects

Marina Dempster is Artist in Residence at The Lyceum who acts as photography mentor to our students. Each week for the past two years, she has mentored our students in photograhy, showing them the technical aspects of shooting in both film and digital formats, building their skills in lighting and composition and introducing them to an array of different photographic styles.

This collection of work comprises Marina’s review and selection of a favourite photograph from each student’s portfolio.

The Group Show also features a number of projects our students worked on throughout the year.

Part Two: Earth/Land Photo Documentation

Marina introduced the students to the work of Andy Goldsworthy with this assignment: “Leaning into elements of colour, line, movement and balance, create and document your own earth art sculptural installation.”

Part Three: The National Park of Emotions Participatory Art Project

In collaboration with Mindy Stricke, students envisioned a national park of emotion. Marina guided them to capture their photographs, after which they named the emotion and wrote a reflection describing what their park would look like.

“In my mind, the sky would always be overcast in the National Park of Calm. The park just stares.” Violet, grade 8

“The National Park of Wonder is full of gargantuan plants, with purple tendrils and strange leaves. All around, these odd botanical specimens sway in the light breeze. Motes of green light float through the air, and chunks of copper glint in the soil.” Julian, grade 8

“In the National Park of Uncertainty, it is blurry and you can’t tell what it is and you don’t know what is coming in the future. It always rains and you are always alone with one pet chicken.” Lucian, grade 6

“National Park of Joy. I started doing magic as a hobby during lockdown. I showed my parents and they were fooled. Fooling them gave me joy.” Koan

Part Four: One Minute Sculptures

This project draws on the work of Erwin Wurm, whose one-minute sculptures showed at The Tate Gallery in 1997. Students formed tableau configurations using objects in their immediate environment. They had to hold the pose for one minute before the photograph was taken. The time delay freezes the pose in a kind of absurdist still life of chaos interrupted.

Part Five: Queen’s Voice Radio Show
Publicity Portraits

Every Wednesday at 10, The Lyceum students hit the airwaves with a podcast they write, record and broadcast entirely on their own. The content includes news of the weird world around us, mock ads, a serial radio drama, recitations, debates, history, health, food reviews and sports. Each student has a different beat to cover.

They were asked to create a character for their radio persona and we spent a fun day in studio with Marina costuming and shooting the posters you see here.

Part Six: H.O.P.E Portraits

Each student selected a community leader in whom they find inspiration; a person whose vision translates into agency for positive change. They were assigned a formal portrait, an environmental portrait and a detail study of a “tool of their trade”. The images on display here are the student’s favourite selection from that work.
Photo Mentorship by Jalani Morgan of The West End Phoenix.