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29-min watch
Thinking Making
00:00/29:24
Thinking Making
00:00/29:24
00:00/29:24

Thinking Making

A documentary that explores the work of Plymouth College of Art and its pioneering approach to art education.

Thinking Making (2017) explores the work of Plymouth College of Art (2008–2022), an independent art college that pioneered an approach to art education centred on making.

The college invested heavily in spaces for making, acquiring the sort of facilities and equipment that other art colleges were increasingly abandoning, namely printmaking presses, kilns, metal working tools and glass furnaces. Teaching focused on understanding materials and developing ideas through an intimacy with process.

This film explores how this approach changes the way that students go about developing their ideas and asks what the ultimate purpose of an art education should be.

About the film

Thinking Making is part of Freelands Foundation’s series of films documenting and celebrating ambitious approaches to teaching and arts education. 

Director: Henry Ward
Cinematography and editing: Laurence Halstead
Colour: Jonny Thorpe
Sound composition & mix: Robin Clarke
Assistant camera: Marcia Sousa
Produced: 2017

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