Marie-Claire and Paula met in late 2021 at a One Walsall networking session, they connected and thought it would be a great idea to work together.

Marie-Claire then approached Paula and they worked together to bring a group from Plasma of Hope to the Museum as part of their Heritage Trips for Young People, funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund. Everyone really enjoyed this, and they stayed in touch, wanting to work together again. 

The opportunity arose when the Museum was successful with gaining funding from Arts Council England to engage with underrepresented groups. Paula approached Marie-Claire with the idea of a creative initiative. They wanted to work in a co-creation way.

Marie-Claire wanted the young people connected to Plasma of Hope to have the opportunity to work with an artist in clay. Paula wrote a brief and put a call out for artists.

There were quite a few applications, and these were passed to Marie-Claire and the group so they could choose who they wanted to work with. Luke’s application stood out and he was asked to be our artist. 

The project consists of 3 workshops sessions with the group and the first session, was at the Museum. The first session was on Saturday 13th April 2024, at RAF Museum Midlands, where all met for the first time for viewing and experiencing the museum with drawing and photography.

After an introduction to Paula Kovacs, and her colleague Liz Chilver, the group was led to a classroom for a group chat from Luke and Donald. Luke presented a very interesting and educational discussion about physical monuments and statues around the country, their history and importance, including those who are for and against their existence.

This was very informative and interesting particularly after the Black Lives Matter movement and protests against some monuments and statues. Donald was introduced to speak about his experience of serving in the RAF and his view of life from a military perspective, especially as a person from a minority ethnic background. 

There were numerous questions from youngsters and adults, showing an intrigue into various aspects of aviation in the RAF.  The group was later given the opportunity to dress in RAF uniforms and equipment such as

getting into being creative.              

The children were encouraged to draw the most interesting thing that they saw in order to start the creative initiative. This was followed by a tour around the museum looking at old and modern military aircrafts, including images and stories of WW2 veterans.

The group also had the opportunity to visit and interact with some more modern aircraft and equipment in the National Cold War Exhibition. The first session of the creative initiative at the museum went exceedingly well.

This left the whole group very excited and engaged to continue the second session. The session, April 20th, was in Walsall, where Paula, Luke and Donald met the group again, where they modelled their favourite aircraft out of clay then covered them with Modroc.

This was left to dry and, in the final session, the models were painted. They also chose a picture of a person from the RAF that inspired them, then modelled the figure out of clay.

They were worked on in the final session, which culminated in the group working on a pop-up exhibition that is hoped will tour in local libraries.

Blog by Donald Campbell