What can the freedom to learn through tactility and play look like
in the 21st Century, where tangible experiences are stifled by a rigid educational structure?
To be Trusted With a Hammer is a photographic exploration of the idea that learning by playing offers a child the most solid foundation from which to grow. Spending time in a Cornish forest school, I worked to visually emphasise the seemingly eccentric and unconventional approach that differs to traditional early-year learning.
Having spent weeks with the same children, I became more aware of the way in which our typical school system inhibits opportunities to embrace our instincts.
I welcomed the ethos of forest school, trusting the children with a new process by handing them disposable cameras to discover, and a shutter release cable to take their own portraits. By allowing the children to immerse themselves into a new process of navigating a camera, I uncovered feelings of control and self-assurance.
The subsequent series visualises a supervised, yet self-motivated learning environment that provides an alternative to the current structure. The process of creation has allowed me to reflect on my own relationship with play as an adult and contemplate the ways in which I experienced education as a younger child.
