ROCK PAPER SCISSORS Rita Evans 1 January 2020 – 30 November 2021 Back Rita Evans worked across St. John’s C of E Primary and Charlotte Sharman Primary schools, exploring the relationship between sound, drawing and environment with Year 3 and Year 6. Rita was interested in how spaces within the school affected sonic acoustics as well as influenced the children’s behaviors, so devised sessions throughout the classroom, corridors and playground locations. Children imagined their own instruments through the process of drawing, leading on to constructing their designs from materials and everyday objects from home, before performing and recording. Mark-making was also used a way to make musical scores and respond to noises being made. From the archive of sounds produced, Rita collated a series of mixes which were transferred to USB sticks and given to each child on a keyring to take home. The recordings connected the schools that were part of the project, allowing children to listen back anytime, even after the closure of St. John’s C of E Primary School, shortly after the project. As well as her in-school projects, Rita co-delivered a Teachers’ Assembly Drawing the Abstract, with ROCK PAPER SCISSORS artist Halima Akhtar, which shared some of the thinking and processes behind using sound and music as a prompt to generate drawings. Rita’s Family Studio event expanded on these themes, inviting families to create sound objects and perform them by torchlight, in Drawing Room’s Library, creating unique ‘audiovisual worlds.’ Rita Evans explores the sensorial details of materials in order to make ‘instrument-sculptures’ which are played solo and performed with others. These have delicate interactive components such as elastics, strings and networks of lines, which function like a kind of working diagram. Recent projects include Coil of Days film installation, Towner Eastbourne International Biennial, 2020; Stringing the Matrix, architectural sound sculpture, Late at Tate St Ives, 2020; as well as receiving the Digital Originals Award from the Canada Council for the Arts, to develop online performance work during the pandemic, 2020. Rita’s work within education and community contexts includes Theatre of Sound and Home Harps, commissioned by Towner Eastbourne, 2020; Collective Instrument Making, Open School East, 2020; The Physicality of Research workshop for teachers and educators, Tate Research Centre, 2018. Thanks to all involved: Children of Year 3 and 4, St John’s C of E Primary School Children of Year 3, Charlotte Sharman Primary School Esme Wedderburn, Workshop Assistant, Drawing Room Esmeralda Gema, Teacher, St John’s C of E Primary School Laura Nichols, Teacher, Charlotte Sharman Primary School Matthew Velada-Billson, Headteacher, St John’s C of E Primary School Misty Ingham, Learning Curator Maternity Cover, Drawing Room Natalie Chant, Teacher, St John’s C of E Primary School Rita Evans, Artist Sheyamali Sudesh, Learning Coordinator, Drawing Room Solomon Williams, Workshop Assistant, Drawing Room Sophie Morris, Teacher, Charlotte Sharman Primary School Scrapbook It was great for me to have the space and time to create in a group and I am excited to take creative tips from the project onto my next school. Daphne, Year 6 teacher, St John’s C of E Primary School I found working with Solomon (Workshop Assistant) on this very beneficial to my practice. As he was working very closely with the children and asking them for their personal feedback, he was able to give a fresh perspective and remember things that he found interesting or relevant that really shaped this. Rita Evans, Artist My imagination drawing took me to my happy place. Joel, child