TOCA Students Exceed All Expectations to Wow Oxfam Team

Students of The Oxfordshire Creative Academy were given just one week to showcase their creative talents to a team of Oxfam Youth Campaigners. The project required students to create empowering artwork to increase awareness of the ‘Families Together’ campaign which aims to help asylum seekers.

Oxfam set the students a project brief, which asked our students to use their creative skills in order to produce digital materials with the aims of:

“Viewers of your art materials should have a better understanding of refugees and feel more welcoming towards refugees arriving in the UK”
“Viewers of your art materials should be guided and feel motivated to sign the ‘Families Together’ letter to the Prime Minister”

The students were given creative freedom to complete the project brief using their chosen artistic tools. In the virtual exhibit of work to Oxfam Youth Campaigners Sophie Morbey and John McLaverty, we saw students excellent video creations, paintings, sketches to sculptures and even video games. The scope and talent of work was exceptional, leaving the judges, Sophie and John shocked at the talent on occasion.

“Powerful, emotive and moving”

“Incredibly impressed at the diversity in creativity demonstrated from one brief”

“I’m blown away with the quality of the work, superb”

These were just a few of the many compliments given to our students by Sophie and John...

The students received constructive feedback from Oxfam, enabling them to make further developments to their work ready for the grand presentation in the traveling museum exhibit planned for later this year.

“This project was such a great opportunity, thank you” said Katie Bell

“Thank you so much for giving us the chance to work to a live brief which is so vitally important” said another student.

Over 80 students took part in this exciting yet challenging brief, with students expressing their eagerness to spend more time perfecting their art before its grand exhibit in the “The Museum without a home”.

“The students have done a fantastic job in their response to the brief, and I am delighted with the feedback they have received from Oxfam. This is even more commendable when considering that the work was produced entirely remotely, within the third lockdown, adhering to the restrictions in force at the time. It was great to see such a diverse response from students across the faculty, and a demonstration of the talent, enthusiasm and engagement that we have here. It is also for a great cause, and I was so heartened to see the students take that on with such drive. I'd like to thank Sophie and John from Oxfam for all their support with the project”
- Kevin Howick, Curriculum Manager for Media & Games, Performance & Production

Read more about the Families Together campaign here.

Read more about The Museum without a home project here

The Oxfordshire Creative Academy runs a variety of popular courses at both our Abingdon & Witney campuses. You can find more information about these courses, and the levels we offer by clicking on the links below.

A selection of the students work below: