A NATRE project to link creativity with Religious Education for schools
The Spirited Arts Gallery 2011
This gallery displays entries from the sixth Spirited Arts competition (Summer 2011).
Enjoy the work from children & young people who have contributed to each of this year's themes:
| Stories of Truth | Every religion tells stories, but are they true? Do they tell us the truth? For younger pupils, this theme involves taking stories they love from religious traditions and expressing the key moments or ideas artistically. Start with any story: Jacob or Moses, the Guru or the Buddha, the Prophet or the Christ, stories told of creation, parable, paradox or meaning. Older pupils might add a question mark and use the stories of faith as starting points for their own ideas about truth. Or they might explore or question atheist or scientific stories as well as those that come from faith. |
| Journeys | Religious texts are full of journeys: from Eden or Nazareth, to Makkah, Bethlehem, Tarsus, Heaven or Nirvana. Life is seen as a journey in many religions. If life is a journey, then what are the milestones, signposts, guidebooks and service stations on the way? What speeds you up or slows you down? What are the destinations? In this theme, pupils winning work will develop great creative ideas about journeys of faith and life, expressing their own ideas as maps, pathways, roads to freedom or random wanderings. |
| Festive Visions | Divali and Hannukah, Eid and Easter, Red Nose Day and New Year, the festivals of life erupt in colour, splendour and community in every faith and any life. Pupils might choose the festival they celebrate, or the one they are learning about and express its key moment, or its big idea with colour and a viewpoint all their own. Festivals are all about vision: the past is visualised and remembered while the future is seen in a visionary way. What is your festive vision? Fireworks, or peace? Light, love or All Hallows Eve? |
| Spiritual Words | What words are the most spiritual for you? Peace? Promise? Truth? Love? Justice? Holiness? Prayer? Trust? Humanity? Unity? For some people, a verse from a sacred text will be the starting point for their ideas about spiritual words, whether it is Qur'an, Bible or Guru Granth Sahib. For others, a word has become spiritual because of its beauty or impact. Pupils might start with the words here, but winning work on this theme will explore the images and symbols that make the words powerful and spiritual, and enquire into the reasons why some words have the power to change the world. |
| God: Who? Where? How? If? |
This competition has often asked: where is God? Who is God? Does God speak? This year, all these questions can be part of the theme, and the new focus is on your questions for God: Where are you, God? What are you like? Why are you invisible? How can we find you? Why can't I find you? Where were you when evil happened? Where are the signs of your love? Are you real, or made up? What questions would you like to ask God, and how might a person who knows everything and loves everyone reply? This theme is just as much for atheists and agnostics as for believers in different faiths: the atheist may say: 'Where is God? Nowhere at all.' |
Stories of Truth Journeys Festive Visions
Spiritual Words God: Who?
Where? How? If?
Spirited Arts is run by the National Association of Teachers of Religious Education with RE Today Services.