For this Saturday Art Club, we’re having a throwback to our Inner City exhibition that was hosted in Gallery 3 between February and November 2018. The exhibition’s centrepiece was an intricate multimedia installation of a Los Angeles slum by Californian artist Michael C McMillen. The exhibition raised questions about the modern city, hidden communities and cultural identity, themes that may have resonance during lockdown as we’ve paused our busy lives to explore our communities and environment more. 

For this activity, we’re going to experiment with architectural collage to redesign our surroundings for future generations! 

You will need:

• A4 or A3 white paper 
• Coloured paper 
• Newspapers/magazines 
• Pencil 
• Pen 
• Scissors 
• Glue 

Step 1: Take a walk around your neighbourhood and pick a space you would like to redesign. 

Step 2: Do a simple sketch of your chosen spot. This is just a very basic line drawing, you don’t need to add too much detail. Trace the buildings, roads and any other features you can see. 

Step 3: Think about what you would like to change about your chosen place. Would you change the architecture or placement of the buildings? Would you add more parks, trees, community facilities for example? How could you make it more eco-friendly for future generations? The space is yours to play around with! 

Step 4: Add these new features into your drawing to guide your collage later.

Step 5: Cut out shapes and images from your coloured paper and newspapers/magazines that you will use for your collage. Try layering and overlapping them to cover the whole page of your sketch. Once you are happy with your design, glue them down. 

Admire your design! How different does it look to the original space? 

Remember to share your creations with us either in the comments section or on social media. #SaturdayArtClub