DēpART Education works in partnership with schools to bring contemporary art and creative practice into the classroom. Our artist-led projects are designed to support the curriculum while encouraging pupils to think critically, collaborate, and express themselves. Each programme offers practical, engaging activities that spark curiosity and help students make connections between their own lives, history, and the wider world. We aim to give teachers fresh tools and ideas while ensuring every child feels included and inspired through the arts.
Our Projects-
Photography As Living Archives
This whole-school project explores history through photography as a living archive—a way of remembering, recording, and reinterpreting stories over time.
Over the course of the project, each year group engages with the work of two world renowned photographers whose images reflect themes such as fashion, celebration, protest, and authorship.
Learning Outcomes – The 5 Cs
The vision of Photography as Living Archives is to help young people see themselves and each other through the lens of history, art, and storytelling—empowering learners to understand, reflect on, and creatively reinterpret histories and cultural identities. Every workshop and classroom session will contribute to developing one or more of the 5 Cs:
Context: Learners develop the ability to situate photographs within their social, historical, and cultural contexts, connecting past to present.
Curiosity: Learners are encouraged to look closely, wonder, research, and uncover meaning beyond the surface of photographs.
Criticality: Learners learn to analyse authorship, perspective, bias, and the power of visual storytelling.
Creativity: Learners engage in hands-on making that expresses personal and collective identity, reflecting on what they’ve discovered through art.
Connection: Learners relate the themes of fashion, celebration, protest, and representation in photography to their own lives and communities.
Project Components:
CPD for Teachers
Led by Chantel, these professional development sessions introduce teachers to ways of working with depth, co-creation, and imagination at the centre of learning. Photography is used as a tool to spark curiosity and shared enquiry, offering strategies that help children uncover stories, make connections, and imagine new possibilities.
Sessions will:
Explore how the 5 Cs (Creativity, Curiosity, Connection, Context, Criticality) can shape classroom practice
Demonstrate how choice-led learning and continuous provision approaches can be adapted beyond Key Stage 1
Provide an overview of the photographers studied in the project, with prompts for classroom discussion and creative response
Model adaptable activities (e.g. Listening to Images, Curator’s Corner) that encourage teachers and pupils to learn alongside one another
Teachers will also co-design lead-up lessons that connect directly with workshop content, ensuring continuity between CPD and classroom practice.
