Impact case study database

• Wellcome Trust and Arts Council funding helped Bonenfant synthesise methods for enticing children (and their adults) to make non-normative sound within interactive performance, leading to improved participation, enhanced quality of life and changed practitioner attitudes and methods.

• New forms of cultural expression and changes in audience perception and behaviour

Your Vivacious Voice (YVV) comprises three works: 1) Uluzuzulalia, a digitally inclusive interactive performance for children aged 6-11 that toured to 29 locations (1038 attendees **(5.9)**) and paved the way for 2) an installation called The Voice Trunk (VT) and 3) Voice Bubbles for iPad. The VT launched in August 2015 at the Winchester Science Centre (WSC) (5.1, 5.9). Voice Bubbles was in the app store from February 2014 until late 2015 (4,500 downloads) (5.1). The works were the first of their kind and challenged preconceptions about voice and about working with children, who ‘tended to use it... creatively, excitedly, and making increasingly unusual sounds’ ( 5.2, p. 20). The Point noted that ‘The way this performance took shape and its results opened up new possibilities and opportunities for us to challenge artists to expand how they considered and developed performance for children’ (5.4), while WSC noted that the VT’s ‘artistic focus and its unusual interactive audiovisual and tactile technology opened up some possibilities for us to think about other ways we could use interactive and performative coding inside the Science Centre’ (5.1). Complimentary education packages linked to the National Curriculum are accessed via third party websites. Five venues commented that the packs were crucial for sales, while WSC prints the pack for KS1&2 teachers – about a third of its visitors are from primary schools. It is estimated, based on downloads and average class sizes, that 4000+ students have used the teaching materials (5.2).

At the heart of each of the three artworks is the principle of the ‘voice-expanding mirror’. When hearing themselves echoed by a digital array, a person (especially children), will copy their own sound back and modify it. The works used digital technologies and live performance to encourage children to make adventurous sounds – profiting from their neurological tendency (as outlined by collaborating psycholinguist Best) that ‘understanding of the phases of phonetic play as infants and children acquire phonemes was absolutely crucial’ and allowed the participants to ‘see what their voices can do’ (5.2). Meanwhile, the schools that participated in the pilot project at The Point reported ‘dynamic and enthusiastic responses to the work’ (5.4).

• The VT was hosted by Winchester Science Centre (WSC) between 2015 and 2019 (140,000 annual visitors, 99% visiting all exhibits) (5.1). Evaluations show that users’ perception of their voice transforms and that they celebrate non-normative voicing. According to the WSC the VT ‘Is now consistently the favourite exhibit. Users [...] dwell on it for very, very long periods, and create quite sophisticated soundscapes with the Trunk…. [There is a] tendency for 5 or 6 children per group to stay obsessively [with] the Trunk for up to 45 mins.’ (5.2). WSC have created a ‘sound trail’ around the exhibit for school groups and report that The VT encourages teachers to take a more ‘creative’ approach to STEM subjects (5.2). The VT radically contrasts with WSC’s more traditional exhibits, transforms the spatial experience and is one of their most accessible activities for disabled youth (5.1). Interestingly, WSC has programmed a follow up exhibition on sound and acoustics using artistic concepts (noted in the Unit’s Research Environment Statement).

Enhanced wellbeing for children with profound and multiple learning disabilities (PMLD)

Children with PMLD have few chances to be creative with their voices; their complex needs make it difficult for them to visit cultural venues. However, children with PMLD demonstrated enormous enthusiasm for YVV, made incredibly sophisticated vocal sounds, and showed very strong interest in improvisation (5.1, 5.2). In response to YVV’s success with this under-engaged audience, Bonenfant was invited to work with Rosewood Free School (5.2, 5.7). The resultant Resonant Tails (RT) enabled a whole new application of the voice-expanding mirror: a stand-alone ‘art machine’ as a facility with which the children could spend extended time celebrating their unique vocal virtuosities (5.10). A senior representative of the school notes that vocal expression ‘is very significant for our learners, many of whom have restricted opportunities to take power over the world that surrounds them’ (5.7), and that the project helped ‘our teachers and teaching assistants to engage with vocal intensive interaction in new ways’ (5.7).

Benefitting from the experience, and supported by introductions from Rosewood School (5.7), RT was rolled out to three more UK schools (in mixed disability groups), where it is used daily and students benefit from sustained educational gains (5.6, 5.10). According to the Independent Evaluation (for the funders), schools feel RT is deeply transformative, enhancing pupil engagement, giving students a creative outlet, and improving well-being (5.10). Teachers report that vocalization and communication have improved – students now know that if they say something, they will be listened to (due to the mirroring effect). This was especially compelling for blind students who experienced ‘tactile feedback’ (5.10). Parents relate that young people showed improved mood, wellbeing, and concentration with ongoing use of RT (5.10). Representative examples of positive pupil outcomes include: 1) a child making sound for one of the only times in their relationship with their teacher; 2) a child using eye contact for the first time; 3) a tactile defensive student reaching out for a musical instrument; 4) another using RT’s orbs, and 5) ‘turn taking, sharing, listening and being comfortable in proximity to each other’ (5.10). In each case, these successes were directly attributed to RT (5.6, 5.10).

New curatorial, artistic and educational practices

• The VT and Uluzuzulalia stretched the aesthetic and participatory boundaries of children in theatrical and museum settings, allowing for new forms of artistic expression. The artworks informed practitioner strategies and innovative venue programming (5.1, 5.4). For the organisations and producers with whom Bonenfant collaborated, it was typically the first time they had developed a project of this nature (5.2), that encouraged children ‘to explore the voice in exciting new directions’ ‘without making them feel they had to “sing” or “sound beautiful’ (5.4).

As concluded in the independent report for funders, RT’s project outcomes were strongly met at each school, with ‘teachers and parents eager to tell me about the effectiveness of RT’ (5.10). Staff found it helped with inclusivity, integration, attention and relationships (5.10). As one teacher at Victoria School said to the evaluator, “We [teachers] are the most valuable resource. Resonant Tails enhances that value” (5.10). It has provided a whole new model for art-making with children in high-needs environments that needs no prior training. Teachers use RT at every opportunity, including to complement learning targets, curriculum activities and teaching core skills (turn taking, proximity to others, cause and effect, touching, sensing, listening), and has been included in individual pupil learning targets – becoming completely embedded (5.7, 5.10).