Speech by Amy Bryant delivered at Artworks Conference in Tate Modern, 30th June 2005.
Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen,
A few months after our studio opened the Room 13 Scotland team came to our school. They talked to us and showed us a slideshow of the artwork they did and their expedition to Everest base camp. After seeing the photos I wondered if I might be able to do that one day.
Now two years later I believe I can do a lot of things if I am given the chance. I have proved to myself that I can do anything.
In Room 13 I have my own space to work in. Nobody takes or moves any of my stuff. My own artwork is about paradise and my dreams. It may seem strange to everyone else seeing a horse flying, elephants and bears in trees, birds of prey hanging upside down like bats and walls of flowers floating in the air. But it’s what I see in my dreams, and that is what my work is about, my dreams.
I think art is the best thing in the world . It is fun to do and does not have any restrictions and no limits.
On our last trip to London we came here to the Tate Modern and we heard some work by Bruce Nauman, it was a bit weird and scary. It was the first artwork that I didn’t have to look at. I also really liked Micheal Landy’s ‘Scrapheap’ installation, to me it said people are rubbish or people make rubbish.
I am finding different ways to express myself, I know much more about artists and more about different kinds of artwork.
In our room children can choose their own topics. Lucy Mogg from last years Y6 started with the question ‘Who am I?’ It took four months before she began the actual artwork and a year to finish it with some help from her friends. Compare this to our usual classes, where we are told what to do and art is just for an afternoon in which time we have to start and finish the artwork.
Room 13 has helped me have fun in my own way: making artworks, writing speeches as well as learning how to contact the press by phone and letter.
Room 13 is our room, there is freedom and we are taken seriously.
Amy Bryant, Room 13 Hareclive 2004/2005