Does every picture tell a story, or is it your interpretation? Based entirely in Tate Britain’s BP Walk through British Art after hours, you will develop creative storytelling skills to generate new ways of reading the art around you. Against the backdrop of British Art from the mid-sixteenth century to the present day, we’ll conjure up stories inspired by individual works and weave narratives for entire rooms. Sessions combine group discussion, oral and written exercises and time for peer and tutor feedback on your collaborative and individual work.
This course is aimed at those with an interest in storytelling, though no prior experience is needed. You are encouraged to engage with a wide variety of material and approaches, and discuss your own interpretations in a supportive setting. The course offers the opportunity to showcase your stories in the galleries on Saturday 23 November during an event launching Tate Britain’s new gallery spaces and collection re-hang
Dr Lucy Scholes
has a PhD in English Literature from Birkbeck, University of London, and used to teach in the English Department at Goldsmiths. She is now a freelance literary critic, writing for a variety of publications including Critical Quarterly, Untitled Books, The Times Literary Supplement, The Daily Beast, The National, The Independent and The Observer. Lucy previously taught the popular Tate Modern courses 'Projecting Desire: Sex, Psychoanalysis and Cinema', ‘Hidden’, ‘The Apathy Complex’, and most recently, ‘The Critical I’.
Week one: art inspired by literature
The eighteenth century
We begin the course in some of the earliest rooms in the collection, comparing the paintings with their literary sources of inspiration, discussing what makes a faithful artistic representation
Week two: characterisation
The nineteenth century
Exploring the basics of characterisation, this week we breathe life into the subjects on the walls: naming them, giving them families, relationships and entire back stories.
Week three: dialogue
The nineteenth century
This week we focus on paintings of two or more figures that seem to be crying out for a conversation.
Week four: world building
The twentieth century
Building a wider context for our characters and their conversations, we explore the important role played by picture titles and how these affect our readings of the scenes depicted.
Week five: plot
The twentieth century
This week we build on everything we have learned to use conjure up a narrative for an eight-part series of works, focusing particularly on plot and narrative structure as we tell our stories.
Week six: what’s the story?
The twentieth century
In one of the most recent galleries we take inspiration from the host of modern scenes depicted and consider how they capture a moment in time to create narratives that led to this particular point, or imagine what follows. There is time to collectively edit and rehearse your stories developed through the course for the optional gallery performance on Saturday 23 November.
