This is an example of project based creative learning model developed by Big Bang Lab using music and film archives.
Created by Sergio López Figueroa in partnership with Brent Council and delivered by Big Bang Lab, Unseen Voices is an interdisciplinary outreach project aiming to engage young people and the community through creative participatory practice using film archives, photographs and live original music. This is a an example of a project that creates new learning and outreach opportunities outside the boundaries of the school. [... read more]
The project helps to create awareness of the importance of remembrance, commemoration, peacekeeping and human rights in today´s world. The main output is to connect historical and contemporary issues such as discrimination, racism and gang violence by looking at the past and creating a debate among students, teachers and the community.
Target students
Year 10 students and above Music, History, Citizenship and Media studies.
Intergenerational workshops.
The film: children as holocaust victims, refugees survivors and rebuilding lives after WW2
One train is the hope for a new life… another train is leading to death. The film Unseen Voices is based on the real story of 10,000 children Jewish refugees also known as Kindertransport who scape from the Nazis to save their lives in the years before WW2 by traveling alone to the UK. Unseen Voices pays tribute to victims of Holocaust, genocides and war crimes using music and silent moving images without language barriers.
Interdisciplinary project
The final silent digital film and the music created and the non-use of words makes it globally accessible. We are creating further links and opportunities with live soundtrack and film workshops outside the UK re-using the same material in different ways. Further similar projects with other schools as well as youth ensembles are on development, as well as vocal workshops across age and background.
This outreach project is a good example of how to learn about historical issues by using creatively film archives and producing a digital silent movie entirely made of film archives. The creation of original music each time creates a new experience of the film through live performance.
§ Medea awards participant 2008. For more info click here
§ For further information refer to www.unseenvoices.org
§ You can watch the full Unseen Voices film here
§ Unseen Voices presented at London Metropolitan Archives event Teaching Wartime and Post War British History
§ Click here to download the short evaluation report from Brent Council
§ You can download the project brief here
The structure and planning of the project involved the following steps. It was important that the same group of students went through the whole process described briefly here.
1. Research:
Students were exposed to tools, strategies and resources to learn to find information and use it in the context of the project. The purpose was to engage participants by questioning film archives in both historical and contemporary context in relation to the project aims and output. Through this initial learning process designed to promote curiosity and lateral thinking students made decisions collectively , starting from the intial ” information stage” into a constructive and meaningful experience in context. We looked at the representation of Holocaust in films and discussed the purpose and audience for the new silent digital film to be created. We talked a lot about recycling knowledge and information into an experience and decided to putting things to practice with a hands on approach.
2. Structure and Editing: the making of the film – Children refugees and victims
Through a series of practical activities in stages the students learn to create a synopsis and pitch for the rest of the group, create the storyboard by a selective process and create the narrative and structure of the film using digitized film clips and photographs. as source material No filming was involved and therefore they learn how to use editing software to create a new digital film working in teams. Students applied the new skills to a real project, combining theory, technical skills and practice. The final film was viewed by the group and the changes were almost made on real time based on reflection, positive criticism and feedback.
3. Music composition and performance: music as a channel for community engagement
Big Bang Lab delivered a series of analytical activities to discover the role of music in the structure, drama 
and narrative from new perspectives in order to get away from an arbitrary use of music based on personal taste or preference. Through practical workshops the music was created collectively and also specially composed or arranged. In this case we used a theme from the composer Hans Neumayer based on the score we found at the Holocaust exhibition as a starting point. We also worked with a Junior Choir. The final performance by 30 students to the final film Unseen Voices took place at the Town Hall in Wembley as part of the Brent Holocaust Memorial Day ceremony.
4. Museum visit in context: experiential learning and intergenerational live experience
At different points of the project the students were engaged by educators from Anne Frank Trust who brought their expertise in the field of human rights education in the context of the classroom. Students also visited the Holocaust Exhibition at the Imperial War Museum which as originally planned. They met an educator from the museum who was also a survivor of the Holocaust as a hidden child.
5. DVD production
The whole project was filmed at different stages and from that material a DVD was produced by Big Bang Lab as a learning resource. It is structured in four short documentaries following this year’s Holocaust Memorial Day theme “imagine, remember, reflect and react”. Teachers are encouraged to focus on different aspects of the project as a learning resource package. Optional extras include useful resources such as links to selected archives and projects as well as still images.
6. Further performances, development and distribution
We give importance to both the learning process as well as the product, the production of a new silent digital film and the music for a live performance. The same film is going to be subject of new screenings and further composition/performance workshops by young people and refugees. Future spin offs from the project are under development.
Based on our philosophy and business model of using and re-using resources we are actively looking to ways to expand this project in different locations worldwide. Our team of film researchers are finding the right material to be used in a wider context and new projects are emerging from this successful project. We are also working with a youth group in South London to re-use the same film produced in Brent but with a new live soundtrack created for a special event at the Southbank centre in partnership with Refugee in Films.
SCREENING
7th of May 2008 at the Tricycle cinema. Brent Youth Tube Film Festival
28th September 2008 ICA theatre as part of the audience development programme “Invitation to a Journey”
Big Bang Lab launch took part as one of many activities of the Open Rehearsal and Open Weekend, the launch of the Cultural Olympiad.
FREE EXTRA RESOURCE
We recycled CDs to print the labels of the spectrum of Holocaust victims used by the young singers to cover their mouths as they sing. Click here to download the A4 template. It is a good way of reusing unwanted CDs and recycle them for a purpose!
