Spaces to Explore: Prioritising Process in Creative Learning is a two-year collaborative project that integrates process-driven art, experiential learning, and meaningful play, establishing creative confidence in students.
The project is delivered by Lead Artists and Co-facilitators who have co-designed a programme of workshops tailored to the support needs of teachers and students at Harris Academy Chobham Primary, Star Lane Primary School and Vicarage Primary School.
Spaces to Explore is supported by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, who work collaboratively with organisations and individuals who are working to build a just society. The awarded grant is part of the foundation’s Arts-Based Learning programme.
Artist Facilitators
Spaces to Explore is delivered by Lead Artists:
Halima Akhtar, Nisha Duggal and Davinia-Ann Robinson
The programme is supported by Co-facilitators:
Molly Burrows, Folasade Lawal, Tasha Brune Goodey (year 1) and Amelia Wornell (year 2)
Return to our Engagement page to see more projects
Images:
1. Alaa Satir
2. Alaa Satir
3. Molly Burrows
The programme includes a series of CPD training sessions for teachers and educators, parent workshops that allow families to experience the creative process alongside their children, and concludes with a Creative Showcase in 2026.
In the first year, between January and July 2025, we worked collaboratively with artist-facilitators and participating schools to deliver 30 artist-led workshops in classrooms and outdoors on The Line.
The bespoke programme has been tailored to the needs of each school, including:
- Process-based, tactile, and experiential workshops specifically for students with special educational needs
- Meaningful outdoor play and experimentation, encouraging creative confidence and creative risk-taking in students
- Developing a collaborative, responsive approach to teaching and learning art that encourages play, risk-taking and experimentation amongst students
- De-mystifying the creative industry by highlighting successful arts professionals and providing live demonstrations of how creative careers can thrive in various fields
Spaces to Explore emphasises creative risk-taking and experimentation in arts-based learning.
Rather than focusing on fixed, assessment-based outcomes, the projects’ aims are underpinned by the collaboration between students, facilitators, and teachers, and the unique contribution offered by The Line for arts-based learning.
In our first year, we found that:
- Children engaged with a range of materials, processes and techniques throughout the project. Artist facilitators utilised multi-sensory, somatic, and embodied practices to enhance the potential of process-led learning experiences.
- Freedom to explore materials and processes without set outcomes that enables children to experiment, take risks, think divergently and learn collaboratively. This has led to evolved problem-solving and communication in groups.
- There have been indications of improved wellbeing among students across all schools, including increased happiness, pride, confidence, social connection, excitement, engagement, peace, resilience, and agency.
In year two of the programme, we will build on the creativity, confidence, and wellbeing fostered in our first year, deepening collaborative, process-led approaches that give children freedom to explore, take risks, and grow. Together with teachers and artists, we will continue to expand spaces where children can connect, express themselves, and thrive through discovery autonomously.
‘I liked drawing, it made me relaxed.’
– Student
Nisha Duggal
Nisha Duggal is a multidisciplinary artist working across media to create research-led, participatory projects in sculpture, print and moving image. Her practice explores everyday expressions of freedom and the transformative potential of making, often through workshops that generate co-produced artworks.
Central to her work are developed workshop methodologies that invite participants into processes of making, conversation and shared authorship. Through these processes, Nisha explores everyday expressions of freedom, attending to how acts of making and doing can reveal deep-seated impulses toward connection, play, resistance and care.
Her work is driven by an interest in the transformative potential of participation. Rather than positioning audiences as observers, Nisha’s practice consistently invites engagement, foregrounding collective agency, embodied knowledge and the social life of artworks.
She has exhibited internationally at venues including Art Night and Watermans (London), Arnolfini (Bristol), Baltic (Gateshead), Oriel Mostyn (Llandudno) and Ginza Art Lab (Tokyo), with screenings across Europe and South America. Nisha has received commissions from Site Gallery and Contemporary Art Forum, was shortlisted for the Jerwood Moving Image Awards (2008, 2013), and held residencies with Walthamstow Wetlands, the National Trust, Royal Overseas League, In Situ and D6.
Nisha has worked collaboratively with Star Lane Primary staff and students to produce a series of creative learning sessions involving clay sculptures, layered portraits, animation and live music-making.
“Location is so important – (at Star Lane) we have our own dedicated art studio, and (have been) able to display our new work across the term. The work we made last year is beautifully presented in the room, aiding our discussions and ideas for future workshops.” – Nisha Duggal
“I am a passionate advocate for the value of arts to the curriculum… beyond the many transferrable skills learnt through arts activities, I believe that a questioning approach to problem solving in art education can enrich learning.” – Nisha Duggal