Ikon & Ark Birmingham Schools

By Will Kew, Ikon’s Education Producer 

In early 2026, Ikon’s Education Team launched a new partnership with Ark Birmingham schools, bringing together gallery visits, artist residencies, creative workshops and teacher CPD. The programme has connected young people with practising artists and cultural professionals, opening up new opportunities to learn through creativity, experimentation and making.

Throughout the summer term, students visited Ikon Gallery and explored the current exhibitions, Break the Mould and Angela de la Cruz: UPRIGHT, engaging with the ideas, themes and artistic approaches on display. Building on these experiences, regional artists Nikki Gandy, Jo Gane, Nessa Grimes and Hazel Tomlinson led in-school residencies, encouraging students to further explore exhibition themes through creative experimentation and hands-on making.

At Ikon, Year 2 students from Ark Tindal Primary had the unique opportunity to meet and interview artist Halima Cassell during her residency in Ikon’s Ceramics Studio. Halima shared reflections on her own school experiences and her early passion for creating art, offering students an inspiring insight into her creative journey.

As part of the session, students contributed their own words to Halima’s Virtues of Unity collection and were invited to handle maquettes and a selection of the artist’s raw materials, including the red Colombian clay featured in her work. Following this experience, the students continued to explore ceramics back at their school.

Just outside the Birmingham Ring Road, Ark Tindal Primary has created its own thriving urban oasis for wildlife. Students on the school’s Eco Council and Gardening Club are proud guardians of their very own eco-garden, with veg boxes, a greenhouse and egg-laying hens. Students also monitor the air quality in the school site and have established bulbs and wildflowers in pockets around the site to inject colour and attract pollinators.

This commitment to biodiversity was the inspiration behind Year 2’s workshops with ceramic artist, Nessa Grimes. Together with the artist, students explored their school grounds, finding textures and objects to make their own clay stamps. Through patterns, impressions, stencils and slip painting, students created a colourful tile in tribute to their favourite wildlife. These creations will form a permanent outdoor artwork overlooking the playground. Visible to students, parents and visitors, the installation will be surrounded by plenty of plants!

At Ark Boulton, students partnered with photographer-artists Niki Gandy and Jo Gane, taking a deep dive into the history of photography.

Jo Gane challenged the students to explore photography as a slow, material process involving light and chemistry. Local history connections were explored through the life and work of George Shaw (1818-1904), a scientist and pioneer of British photography who lived in Small Heath. At the same time, innovation in the West Midlands glass industry was helping to broaden the scope of photography, through the production of lenses and glass plates.

In a makeshift darkroom set up in their drama classroom cupboard, the students gained hands-on experiences with historical photographic processes including tintype, cyanotype and daguerreotype. Following a series of experiments, they staged portraits and took images of their surroundings at school, before watching them develop in the darkroom.

Finally, a group of boys from Ark Kings Academy embarked on a journey inspired by a piece of Birmingham’s medieval heritage. The 12th-century Deritend Jug is an example of the type of pottery once produced along the banks of the River Rea and was likely traded in the Bull Ring marketplace during the 12th and 13th centuries, alongside textiles, leather and other crafts.

Retracing this historic connection, the students followed the course of the River Rea from Deritend to Kings Norton. There, in their local park, they pulled on their wellies and entered the river to collect clay directly from its banks. Guided by artist Hazel Tomlinson, they processed the clay by hand into a workable material and learned traditional pottery-making techniques to create their own medieval-inspired vessels.

The outcomes of these artist-led projects, alongside artwork from all five Ark Birmingham schools, can be seen at Ikon in Future Heritage, a celebration of creativity, collaboration and young people’s responses to Birmingham’s heritage.

Open Friday 2 – Sunday 11 October 2026, 11am-5pm. Free entry.