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.