The Manchester skyline, one of Laura Barnard's illustrations installed in our English school in Georgia.
Gregory Nash, the British Council’s Director Arts Wider Europe, explains how the work of a UK illustrator and several writers found its way to the walls of our new teaching centre in Tbilisi.
I’ve never been one for evening classes. My mother was a school cleaner and going with her to work at the end of the day I was struck by the sadness of the abandoned classrooms: the chairs stacked on desks, the building empty of inhabitants. As an adult I have limited my learning to nine to five; with the exception, once, of a ballroom dancing class, which I quit when I realised that my fellow students were there more for the romance than the rumba.
So when plans to open a new teaching centre in Tbilisi were announced I asked British Council Georgia director Zaza Purtseladze to work with me to make the classrooms animated, inspiring spaces that reflected the energy and creativity of the UK. He was characteristically enthusiastic: market research had told him that a ‘feeling of connection to the UK’ was a key incentive for enrolment among the 18-24 year old target group.
We named the classrooms Belfast, Brighton, Cardiff, Edinburgh and Manchester. Our design team commissioned UK illustrator Laura Barnard to bring together the iconic buildings and spaces of each place in a series of intricate cityscapes. Our literature team found authors connected to the cities, and Ron Butlin, Gillian Clarke, Glenn Patterson, Adam O’ Riordan and Bethan Roberts gave permission for extracts from their work to sit alongside the graphics. At the entrance to the centre a hand-drawn map of the British Isles welcomes students in English, Welsh, Gaelic and Celtic.
The Tbilisi teaching centre is the first to open in our region in twenty years. Eight hundred learners now study there, not in characterless rooms, but surrounded by enchanting drawings and inspiring words. Student feedback is good: Katie told us, ‘It’s great to learn English in Brighton,’ while Archil ‘never knew that Cardiff could be so picturesque’. We plan to replicate the installations in new centres as we open them, commissioning more cities as we grow.
What next for Georgia? Well, I thought a ballroom dancing studio named, as you might expect, Blackpool.
Learn more about our new teaching centre and our other work in Georgia.
Read about our English and education work around the world.
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Posted on February 17th, 2013 Report abuse
The concept for the dance studio sounds wonderful. I am wondering though, if rather than cityscapes, that landscapes from the history of Blackpool could be considered. It is great to connect people to a place in the present. The landscape is still there hidden under all the structures that have been built over time. By creating a space for the dance to connect to the past, many more stories could unfold. Folk dancing has stories of its own and brings into the picture intricate patterns, different rhythms and is more about community, than romance. Though romance is part of what makes a community if you think about it.
At the moment I am helping a teacher with ballet basics workshops for adults. One problem that adults have with learning ballet is remembering combinations. Probably, other forms of dance present the same situation. Anyway, we are presently finding ways to prompt memory so that the dance flows as it should. It’s fun.
Thank you for sharing your concept.
Posted on March 15th, 2013 Report abuse
Blackpool’s Winter Gardens could be illustrated on the walls.
The British Council is the UK’s international cultural organisation. Read about the work we’re doing building relationships between the UK and other countries through our work in Arts, English, Education and Society.
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