Despacito Art School – Open School East

Despacito Art School is a project-based programme for children aged 5-12 from Cliftonville West, Margate. The programme provides regular opportunities for the children to take part in hands-on art making and showcase their work in public presentations to their families, the local arts community and the broader public.

*The Sound I Sea* with Shenece Oretha, 2023. In partnership with iniva.

Through a varied programme, Despacito Art School invites internationally recognised artists and OSE alumni to lead workshops across music, painting, fashion, performance, film, sculpture and share their approaches to produce engaged and experimental artworks, exhibitions and events.

Past projects include When the World Looks Back at You with Tai Shani, in which participants unpacked experiences and perspectives on the anthropocene, counter culture and science fiction, biomimicry and fluidity; The Sound I Sea with Shenece Oretha, in which participants created a new sound in response to Margate’s seasonality and the sea; and with Samara Scott/SOSSKYN, in which participants experimented with latex printing, liquidity, superimpositions and DIY garment making that ‘hijacked’ locally found materials. This project, as well as FIDO (a film developed by OSE Associates Emelia Kerr Beale, Lucia Coppola and Middleton Maddocks) featured in 2024’s final graduate exhibition at OSE’s base in Hawley Square.

Despacito Art School runs in tandem with the theme of each two-year programme cycle, and is supported by OSE Alumni via our Springboard Programme, which sees Despacito Art School engage in projects that span generations, thought systems, cultures, and lived experiences.

*Despacito Art School* with Geoffrey Chambers, October 2022.

In addition to working with children through Despacito, we are using our new Civic Programme to develop more embedded ways to foreground community in all that we do. We recognise that schools can be challenging spaces to learn for some children and that the arts, which are intrinsic to health and wellbeing, are an increasingly rare provision at many schools. We work with a variety of partners in our local community to source and share resources, knowledge and skills to offer alternative provision. They have included Garden Gate Project, Roma in the Lead, Drapers Mills Primary Academy, Margate Carnival, Arts Education Exchange and Margate Radio.

We are working towards future projects with Despacito Art School that consider access to green and outdoor space, environmental justice and the eco-politics of our local area.