Sensitive (Allergens and Everyday Lives) (360G-Wellcome-079045_Z_06_Z)

Sensitive (Allergens and Everyday Lives) In collaboration with artists from Phoenix Arts Association's established outreach program, Artist Anna Dumitriu and Professor Helen Smith (Brighton and Sussex Medical School) propose to work with secondary school children from Varndean School in Brighton to develop an understanding of the impact of allergies on young people's lives through the creation of a series of artworks located throughout the school environment. Allergies affect everyone on a personal level, if not at first hand, through friends and family. But there is a huge amount of misunderstanding about how allergic reactions actually happen, what effects they have physically and emotionally and the best ways of dealing with them. Anna Dumitriu has been making and exhibiting art about medicine and microscopy for over 10 years, Professor Helen Smith is the author of "Allergy - Your Questions Answered" and an artist in her own right. Phoenix Arts Association has an established education programme and experience of organising outreach projects. We will undertake a series of short talks, discussions and workshops and the students will be asked to write about how allergies have affected their own lives. Helen and Anna will discuss the scientific background and then we will use microscopes to observe samples of allergens so the students have an opportunity to draw them from life. The drawings, discussions and written work will be used as the basis for a series of both large and small scale interventions around the school, incorporating digital or video projections, installation, craft based techniques and live art performance.