Mapping Canvey Island

Workshops with Canvey Schools

By Vanessa Rolf

During my artist residency on Canvey I worked with several different schools on the Island. We explored the ideas around the Postcards project in a series of workshops; sharing stories and making new discoveries about familiar territory, creating maps, drawing our favourite locations and thinking about our daily surroundings from new perspectives.

Many of the children I worked with came from families who have lived on the Island for several generations. Looking at Canvey through photographs from the past to talk about how it has changed and might continue to do so in the future encouraged some surprising discussions about the people and places depicted and of their own parents, grandparents and great grandparents recollections. We used stories from Canvey Island Archive often as starting points.

Here are a selection of drawings, ideas and maps from the workshops.