South Square Centre has been working with Year 7 pupils at Beckfoot Thornton on a unique art project inspired by local heritage.

South Square invited artist collective Open To The Public, a creative studio based in Wakefield, to design a remote project for students to engage with local heritage.

Students were given activity booklets which featured shapes and patterns inspired by local architecture and archive images from the Thornton Antiquarians Society archive, located onsite at South Square Centre. Images. Images were chosen to represent the three heritage themes. 

Students took part in sessions at school, where artists ‘visited’ their classrooms digitally to tell them about the project. 270 pupils submitted collages made up of the shapes and patterns drawn from images in the Thornton Antiquarians Archive. 12 designs were chosen to be featured in the colourful banners which you can see around the building. 

Click the link above to see all of the students designs and the final banners in location.