Exploring the Ordinary was a workshop delivered across two school settings: a secondary school with Year 7 students and a primary school with Year 4 students. The project invited young people to re-encounter the familiar spaces of their school grounds through a different lens—slowing down, looking closer, and noticing what is usually passed by.

Using a sequence of hands-on creative techniques, the workshops encouraged careful observation and curiosity. Students began by exploring texture through rubbings, tuning into the surfaces beneath their hands and feet. These textures were then translated into clay impressions, allowing small details to be held, examined, and shared. We also explored shape and form through cyanotype-making, using light and found forms to create vivid blue prints that captured fragments of the everyday environment.

Rather than focusing on finished outcomes, the workshop used making as a way to spark conversation and reflection—about the overlooked details of shared spaces, the quiet presence of nature within built environments, and the small, often unseen worlds of moss, insects, and surface textures. Exploring the Ordinary created space for students to rediscover a sense of wonder in their immediate surroundings, revealing how much richness exists when we take the time to look again.