How can artists work with and within cultural venues to provide meaningful support for pupils? In what further ways can arts and culture staff, programmes and venues become a meaningful resource for young people's learning and development?
Join artist and educator Eva Jonas, Teaching Assistant on the The Photographers' Gallery’s Extended Project Qualification (EPQ) in Photography programme, who opens a discussion around these questions. Eva is joined by Kairo Urovi, photographer and alumni of TPG's Develop collective, a group of young people commissioned in 2024 to produce an exhibition at The Photographers' Gallery.
Eva shares insights on her experience of supporting and leading workshops with pupils on our EPQ. Kairo talks about their experience as a mentor on the EPQ programme. Eva and Kairo also collaborate regularly on youth and photography programmes for organisations including Photoworks. This experience will further enrich the discussion. We also welcome others’ perspectives including some of the opportunities and challenges these kinds of collaborations hold.
By reflecting on the value of collaborative working at a deeper, inclusive and pupil-centred way, this session aims to be a forum for ideas and experiences. It will also inform a a series of jointly-written, practical tips to be included in a resource. This will feature a range of ways artists, schools and arts organisations can further contribute to pupils' involvement and learning within the arts.
More info
About Eva Jonas
Eva Jonas is a London-based visual artist and educator. Eva's practice explores the body as a site of mediation in how we experience, move through, and relate to landscape. Recent exhibitions include Where We Meet (Phoenix Gallery, Brighton, 2025), developed as part of Queer Grounds, a young people’s programme supported by Photoworks; (un)common outcomes (Photoworks Festival, 2024); and The Natural, Rural and Remote with Garden Recordings (solo exhibition, Serchia Gallery, 2023). Eva's first book, Let’s Sketch the Lay of the Land, was published by September Books in 2020.
About Kairo Urovi
Kairo Urovi (b. 2000, Fano, Italy) is a visual artist and educator based between Essex (UK) and Shkoder (AL). With a focus on printed matter and community-led approaches, their work explores transness, queer identity, and the shifting lines between truth and fiction. Blending documentary and conceptual approaches, Urovi often reimagines archives and personal histories to question how identity and histories are formed. Recent exhibitions include solo shows at Bazament Space (Tirana) and KOPPEL Collective (London).
Who is this session for?
This session is for artists and educators working in creative facilitation, arts organisations interested in developing or learning more about EPQ programmes, and teachers or cultural practitioners working with artists in secondary school settings. It will be particularly valuable for those interested in collaborative, pupil-centred approaches to arts education and partnerships between schools and cultural organisations.
What is TPG's EPQ programme?
Our EPQ in Photography programme is for A-Level pupils whose schools don't offer Photography as a distinct subject or for pupils who aren't studying Photography at A-Level. Through a series of taught sessions at the Gallery, along with independent work, pupils work to attain an Extended Project Qualification. The programme relies on EPQ Co-ordinators in pupils' schools who keep abreast of pupils' work and are responsible for submitting their work to the exam board. Pupils research and produce an essay or 'artefact' to attain their qualification.
This session is supported by John Lyon's Charity
