My Journey, My Story – Essential Skills and art go hand in hand at Chelsea Centre for Creative Industries

Chelsea Centre for Creative Industries supports Essential Skills learning through the Arts: that’s the message that comes through loud and clear from a new exhibition that opened today at Morley’s centre on Hortensia Road.

This unique exhibition by our talented students, My Journey, My Story, gives outlet to the creativity through which the importance and tradition of storytelling finds its own expression.

By recognising the rich and varied journeys that bring people to study at Morley, we are exhibiting the work of almost 30 of our students, exploring their lives, hopes and dreams. The exhibition brings together many of the creative voices that also study Essential Skills: English, ESOL and Maths.  From text-based descriptions of life-journeys to video-interviews, from self-portraits to a cappella songs, from patchwork ‘quilts’ to architectural models, the work offers insights into the rich and varied talents and lives of our cohort. 

Our education provision as the largest provider of adult learning in London spans most areas of the curriculum and our strengths are in working with our students to support them in learning the skills they want and need to pursue their passions, aspirations and to thrive.

Often this learning finds its base in ESOL and Essential Skills and we are proud of our longstanding, high quality provision available at our centres across London.

Paul Abbott, Programme Area Manager for ESOL, has taken an innovative approach to his teaching – using art within his Essential Skills programme. Paul first spoke of this when he joined the Chelsea Centre for Creative Industries in 2021; as an artist and teacher the benefits of this approach to learning are clear.

“I joined Chelsea Centre as a creative hub with the intention of fusing these teaching and learning approaches as I have an arts background myself. For me, it makes perfect sense to support Essential Skills learning in this way and I am delighted that I have been able to lead this project.”

Paul Abbott, Programme Area Manager, Chelsea Centre Creative Industries

My Journey, My Story charts our students’ stories; their fears, hopes and dreams. It reveals transformative moments, courage and resilience, including:

• Pezhman Noruzi (Iran) singing a traditional song from his tribe in Iran (video)
• Walter Dore (Italy) singing a song he has created himself – a pop song with guitar and video (video)
• Hai Qing He’s (China) self-portrait paintings and poems!
• Deida Acero’s (Columbia) documentation of her work as a milliner spanning the last thirty years
• Ali Habeb Sultan Alfadly’s (stateless Kuwait) essay on Why We Write

We hope you can join us at the Chelsea Centre for Creative Industries for our Private View on Wednesday 7^th December 2022, 2pm until 5pm. The exhibition will be open to our community and the public until Wednesday 14 December between the hours of 10am and 4pm.