CASCADE
2004/5
 BUILD, a temporary structure in Gunpowder Park developed by artist John Cockram during his participation in the CASCADE programme.
| Exhibition in the Field Station March 11 – 30, 2004
CASCADE is a mentoring programme linking research, education, regeneration and community through the arts, involving partnerships between cSPACE arts organisation, the University of East London, young people in further education and local schools.
During the autumn of 2004, Fine Art residency students from the University of East London provided individual support and mentoring for young people enrolled in NewCAD courses at Newham College of Further Education. Each mentoring pair also facilitated workshops organised by cSPACE at North Beckton Primary School. Research, information and ideas were provided by the London East Research Institute, London 2012, the Gunpowder Park team, professional artists and an Olympic athlete. Following this introduction, the students accompanied by their mentees facilitated workshops for 8/9 year old pupils at the school.
Through these workshops students were able to introduce to the school new processes and materials for art production. They worked in collaboration with teachers to help the children express their ideas, each class considering aspects of the potential environmental impact of a 2012 Olympics on East London. The children then communicated their views through a variety of forms and media.
Meanwhile students at Newham College followed a project on the same theme. Undergraduates brought examples of their work, demonstrating ways of working as well as outlining their own journeys into higher education, to provide inspiration for the younger students. They then joined in the project groups to help with the development of ideas.
The process overall has resulted in a ‘two-way cascade’ of skills - from the experience of professional artists, to university students, to young people, to children. Each group has offered support and role modelling to their younger counterparts, while themselves gaining experience in professional practice to benefit their own stage of learning.
The exhibition was hosted by Gunpowder Park from March 11 – 30. On show were all levels of work produced - the children’s artwork and ideas, posters by the FE students, and work by the undergraduates resulting from their involvement.
This exhibition documented a process aimed at dovetailing learning experiences for local children and young people, with professional practice in the arts for students in further and higher education around issues of local regeneration.
CASCADE opens up opportunities for long-term partnership between local organisations and educational institutions, creating a transferable model of engagement. It demonstrates the educational possibilities of art practice in the community and the ways such collaboration may benefit all concerned. At the same time it creates an arena where young people may make their voices heard on issues central to all our futures.
Cascade 04/05 has been financially supported by Aim Higher, University of East London, Lee Valley Regional Park Authority, Gunpowder Park, Newham College of Further Education and North Beckton Primary School.
The exhibition was opened on March 11 by Michael Thorne, Vice Chancellor UeL, Aisha Qureshi, London 2012 Community Communications Manager, Loraine Leeson and Tony Beckwith.
As part of the CASCADE exhibition at Gunpowder Park, artist John Cockram devised ‘BUILD’, a large scale site specific installation, sponsored in full by TRAD Scaffolding.
BUILD grew from John’s participation in ‘Cascade’. A temporary intervention in the landscape, BUILD engaged with the sensitive issues of regeneration and development against the wider backdrop of a possible 2012 London Olympics. Encountered from a distance, an acknowledgement of BUILD’s limited life-span had to be reconciled with the immediate unease of confrontation with a hastily developed construction in an established and familiar space. Scaffolding is, by its very nature a visual paradox: a metaphor for the eagerly anticipated or the imminent. Applied to the structure, were the thoughts of some of the children about the impact of the Olympics, printing on traditional warning tape, wrapped around the scaffold poles and completely covering the inside face of the hoarding.
The emergent thoughts, and legitimate apprehensions about such potential Olympic ‘regeneration’, arising from the children’s workshops, informed BUILD’s conception and aesthetic. Closer inspection revealed unease between the familiar concreteness of such scaffolding construction and the visually evident investment of highly personal meaning and sentiment. BUILD was simultaneously object and captured dialogue.
Project notes by Loraine Leeson and John Cockram. | 
