Day Out.

Cornerhouse, Whitworth, Victoria Baths... [MMU's Chatham Building not shown]




The Tuesday Talk was Total Bollocks, Concrete Thoughts at the Whitworth stank of conceptual blabbercrap cat wank and Vicky B was as beautiful and unpretentious as ever. Following a meeting with a representative, I am delving into the potential of the Baths as a place of educational benefit - making free fun from what is available, learning some facts and going home/back to the classroom with useful memories. That's silly, that last bit. I understand the advantage of avoiding an lazy adult's understanding of "what kids want". It's transparent from anyone but a television. Stop it! Get back to the point! I hear me cry.

There is a lot of potential in the Baths. There is the social/historical side of the building, its use and its users. There is the atmosphere of a retrospective place. There are the textures of the walls and tiles, the colours of the bricks, the stained glass windows. There are stories, there are facts, there are good acoustics. There is science behind the operation of the pump system. There is the water and the electricity. There is the decoration and the class division. There are strange contraptions for bathers. There are details that few people could absorb entirely, the tiny things with character, incidental scupltures and robotic faces in the vents. There are the mysterious dark holes. There are the ticket offices, the business side of things, a similarity to today's indoor swimming experience. There are parallels to keep information relevant and difference which need to be described in a way that encourages imagination. There are apparently ordinary and unsignificant things with reasoning behind them. There is the practicality of the decoration which enforces class hierarchy. There are the descriptions of the past, full of sensation to be shared. The information provided to the children can be encouraged into becoming something else, a story, drawing, discussion, collection. We must provide useful and enjoyable activities that can be linked directly to the requirements of the curriculum. We have a whole load of tools to help us, information in many forms. I am going to start looking at ways that the information could be used in order to produce new work with and by the children, starting with things that I can find on the internet. First stop is the official Baths website...