Slow Boat Year Two Review

The Slow Boat Year Two Review took place on 2 March 2023. Ikon Youth Programme collaborated with project evaluator, artist and educator Cathy Wade to produce the event, which reflected on the Slow Boat 2022-23 programme. Eight artist-educators were invited to conduct activities as stimuli for evaluative discussion.  

The event was hosted by IYP and attended by  their collaborators, working in the field of arts education, plus future partners. Students from the MA Arts and Education Practices course at Birmingham City University documented the review.   

Exodus Crooks and Rafal Zar led a session on how to sustain ourselves as artists. Participants produced a visual guide to share with their peers and those who have recently begun a creative career.  

Ayesha Jones and Hira Butt used their activity to respond to making and identity. This was a tactile, sensory workshop, which explored our relationship with objects and how we might visualise our identity through them.  

Gemma Wright, Head of Creative Learning, Warwick Arts Centre, and Dauvit Alexander delivered a session on lifelong learning in the arts and continuing our practice beyond formal education.  

Black Country Type modelled creating through place, encouraging participants to map out significant points of interest along the canals of the West Midlands, responding to locations and histories of specific routes.  

These short workshops were followed by a focused discussion led by IYP, covering topics of arts education including everyday activity as creativity, phases of productivity as an artist and sites for education.  

About Ikon Youth Programme

Ikon Youth Programme (IYP) are a group of young people aged 16-21. Together they make artwork, meet artists, publish writing and organise events.

With the support of Freelands Foundation, over three years (2021-24) Ikon Youth Programme (IYP) navigates the waterways on board Slow Boat, a converted narrow boat. IYP are collaborating with creative thinkers and makers to reimagine Slow Boat as a local art school.

Set against the backdrop of funding cuts to arts education, we are expanding the alternative curriculum offered by IYP, raising fundamental questions concerning the definition and relevance of art.