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Government Art Collection

Illustration of a girl and a boy hopping happily in a field filled with bushes and flowers with Makaton symbols in the bottom-right corner.
Illustrated by Sudeshna Saxena | London College of Communication | UAL

The Government Art Collection (GAC) reached out to London College of Communication (LCC) to collaborate with students to create unique illustrations for their TenTen in Schools programme. GAC's Robson Orr TenTen Award commissions outstanding British artists to create limited-edition prints to be displayed around the world. As part of the TenTen in Schools Programme, GAC curators bring these prints into schools, to deliver interactive workshops to students around the theme of the artwork.

The GAC worked with the Swiss Cottage School, a special educational needs and disability (SEND) school to deliver 2 sessions inspired by Rachel Whiteread’s 2022 TenTen print Unititled (Bubble). GAC staff created a fun and engaging fairytale to help communicate the subject of the artwork to a SEND audience, and wanted LCC's students to create artworks that would illustrate key moments in the story.

MA Illustration and Visual Media students were invited to create proposals for 8 colour illustrations corresponding to 8 key moments in the fairytale. A key element of the brief was the inclusion of relevant Makaton symbols, a unique language that uses symbols, signs and speech to enable people to communicate, into the illustrations. The GAC staff guided the students in how to use the Makaton symbols appropriately in their work.

The GAC selected Sudeshna Saxena’s work from the many that were submitted. Sudeshna created visually energetic and engaging characters with adequate contrast against the backdrops to allow the children to imagine themselves as a part of the story. She wanted the visuals to be comforting and magical. Her illustrations were successfully used in GAC’s TenTen in Schools workshop.

Contact
LCC Business and Innovation
Email: partnerships@lcc.arts.ac.uk

Everyone loved Sudeshna's illustrations and during the school's workshops they added something very magical to the event.

— Shasti Lowton, Curator, Public Engagement, Government Art Collection

Project credits

Lead academic: Harriet Hedden, Lecturer – MA Illustration

Student work

  • The first half of the image has a boy singing and a girl standing in the rain and the second half of the image has the girl looking up and the boy hopping happily surrounded by flowers and bubbles. There's a Makaton symbol on the bottom-right corner.
    Illustrated by Sudeshna Saxena | London College of Communication | UAL
  • An illustration of a wizard next to a pot full of boiling potion, casting a spell on a boy and a girl who look happy. There's a Makaton symbol in the bottom-right corner.
    Illustrated by Sudeshna Saxena | London College of Communication | UAL
  • Illustration of a boy and a girl first standing pinching their noses, then in the process of entering a large bubble and finally playing Jenga inside the large bubble. There's a Makaton symbol in the bottom-right corner
    Illustrated by Sudeshna Saxena | London College of Communication | UAL
  • A boy and girl inside a large bubble, surrounded by different types of animals in a jungle. There's a Makaton symbol in the bottom-right corner.
    Illustrated by Sudeshna Saxena | London College of Communication | UAL

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London College of Communication

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London
SE1 6SB