In all I think that the Open Learning Fair at ESW went really well; there were a lot of people there to participate, and each different workshop seemed to be well attended. Each member of the CAT course participated in a number of different workshops, and both ESW and ECA staff also joined in. We also had in attendance a number of 3rd year sculpture students, also from ECA, and they were enthusiastic about the tool/kits and workshops, and stayed at the fair until it was time to finish up.
The fair seemed to work smoothly as scheduled, though I think that the timings might have drifted a little towards the end of the day; this is understandable given that the sculpture students were free to attend any workshop they wished, and also some workshops (including my own) were either “automated” or able to run off-schedule (for example by doing a quicker version, perhaps with fewer participants). I think perhaps that if we did the fair again, we could lean in to this slightly more “improvised” aspect of the fair, even encouraging “drift” and even collaboration between different workshops / participants.
There was an interesting range of tool/kits on display, including: making clay models based on abstract drawings; guided storytelling via collage; collaborative “exquisite corpse” style drawing; Q&A following “show and tell” presentation; and much more.
