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EDUCATION

Throughout the year, Studio 174 runs various educational and participatory programmes in the arts, from primary school to university levels. International experts from a range of disciplines including film, painting, sound, photography, dance and fine art regularly spend tenures of between 2 weeks and 3 months at the studio supporting students as they work on projects, productions and exhibitions.

JAMARTIS

Jamartis is an annual 1O week summer school focussing on film, sound and photography in a fine art context. Each year, young artists from Downtown Kingston and the surrounding inner city areas are joined at their base in Studio 174 by a number of students from CARIMAC at University of the West Indies in a period of intense creativity and practical, collaborative learning.

 

At JAMARTIS, the streets themselves oftentake the place of the classroom, with participants drawing their inspiration from the untold and under represented narratives in their own community.

Participants' work takes a wide variety of forms; from traditional documentary and experimental shorts, through radio journalism and multi layered soundscapes to photojournalism and fine art photography. However varied the media and styles across the pieces though, works are held togther by their deep roots in the community. They are works of art created in full collaboration with their subjects, giving a voice to the neighbourhoods so often misrepresented in the national and international media.

 

 

Work is presented to local residents at lease once a week, through an outdoor radio broadcast on West Street while the films and photography are projected from the open doors of the studio onto a wall across the street the size of a cinema screen.

Residents of the area, along with the subjects of the films, are invited to join JAMARTIS participants on the weekly radio show, to offer perspectives on the work of the studio, to raise issues from their community and the wider world or as a platform for their own performance.

The latest slate of films to be produced by participants have played at film festivals across Jamaica including GatFest in Kingston and Cinema Paradise in Portland before receiving an international premiere at the Tate Gallery in London and an invitation to screen at Leeds University's World Cinema Foundation.

In addition to high level practical and theoretical workshops in professional creative practices with industry standard cameras, editing systems and recording equipment, participants also benefit from the expertise of a range of visiting international artists and experts present throughout the JAMARTIS programme.

 

For more information or to apply for a place on JAMARTIS 2O16 email Studio 174 director Rozi Chung

MAJESTY GARDEN FILM CLUB

Majesty Garden film club is a year round film production course and mobile cinema for 6 to 12 year old children in the neighboourhood of Majesty Garden on the outskirts of Kingston, facilitated for Studio 174 by Openvizor and Rainbow Collective.

Started in the summer of 2015 at the St Andrew's Settlement community centre in Majesty Garden, the club provides a safe space for children in the neighbourhood while nurturing creativity, teamwork and a love of arts and education. Senior students from the JAMARTIS programme run the club every Saturday, contributing to their own learning by mentoring younger children and passing on their recently aquired skills and experiences.

The film club is student led, with the first three films completed being conceived of, as well as produced by, the children themselves. Majesty Garden has been subjected to much negative press for many years, an issue which the children find highly disturbing and for their first project the film club took on the responsibility of portraying a positive vision of their home through a series of exercises and films examining perceptions of beauty in the neighbourhood. In the words of 6 year old Film Club member Jessica. "Our neighbourhood is called Majesty Garden because majesty means beautiful and garden means full of beautiful flowers"

 

The Film Club's second film looked at the importance of the local basketball team building bridges in the community and was followed by a fusion of animation and documentary inverstigating local rumours of aligator sightings in Majesty Garden.

Majesty Garden Film Club's current and ongoing project is the production of an educational series for children, teaching numeracy and literacy, in Patrois, through characters, stories, animation and music, using local loacations and found objects, to be distributed for the benefit of children in after school clubs around Jamaica.

 

The Film Club never turns a child away and the team of facilitators bring a portable projecter and sound system to the community centre every weekend, creating a portable cinema where all children from the community are welcome to come and see films from around the world as well as those produced by the Film Club itself.

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