For our Takeover Day we went to Gallery Oldham. The day was themed around local artist Helen Bradley, who was born 119 years ago. St Thomas Leesfield school is in Lees which was her birthplace, and we walked past Bradley’s home on the way to the gallery.
The first activity of the day was an ‘Oldhamers by the Seaside’ workshop with Isobel, a local artist. In it we looked at An Afternoon on the Sands at Blackpool by Helen Bradley and got to explore with sand and water.
Later we split into three groups and all had a go at different activities.
Gallery Oldham’s senior curator Sean Baggaley taught us how to be curators and we got to see more Helen Bradley paintings within the Art Store. Another group prepared a talk about Helen Bradley with educational development officer Kirsty Mairs in Oldham Stories. Finally, the other pupils learned about social media with digital engagement & access collections assistant Karen Heatley.
Everyone also got chance to try writing posts for Instagram and Twitter, along with taking some photographs of the gallery’s displays. We shared some of these stories and images on Gallery Oldham’s Instagram and Twitter! We wrote all sorts of facts about the gallery and the exhibits.
