Illustration: Pauls Rietums
Q&A Bhavit Mehta
Bhavit Mehta far right with the participants in the illustrator exchange at the Vilnius Academy of Arts
Pop art hits west London
An ambitious cultural exchange backed by Arts Council England saw illustrators from the Market Focus countries and the UK collaborate on a book brief, the fruits of which are displayed in an exhibition that opens today. Its protagonist, Pop Up Projects’ project manager Bhavit Mehta, outlines his company’s role—and its goal—to Tom Tivnan
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tom tivnan Why was Pop Up Projects set up, and what is your manifesto? bhavit mehta
Pop Up is a non-profit organisation that works with educational, literary and cultural organisations to enable young people, teachers and families from all walks of life to read more widely, write more crea- tively and develop visual storytelling skills. We are an Arts Council England (ACE) National Portfolio Organisation. In the UK we are focused on working with schools in deprived, isolated and other- wise challenged communities through Pop Up Festival, a national children’s literature festival for schools. Between 2011 and 2017, more than 60,000 pupils (aged three to 14) and 2,000 teachers in 105 schools across England and Wales experienced 2,000 author workshops and received 35,000 new books, igniting imaginations and inspiring future storymakers. This work has had a measurable, transformative impact on read- ing and writing skills, as well as teaching
practices. Our model is simple: we connect classrooms with qualit, contemporary books, and their authors, and celebrate reading for pleasure, creative writing and visual storytelling.
What sort of event are you typically involved in? We deliver author-led Creative Professional Development opportunities in which writ- ers share expertise—particularly around creative writing, illustration and storytelling processes—with educators. We run Pop Up Lab, an annual, roaming practice-sharing conference for adults in education and liter- ature, and Pop Up Hub is our child-centred digital platform showcasing programmed books, inspiring storymaking and self- publishing, and helping teachers to share creative teaching and learning resources.
How did Pop Up Creators come about, and what is the scope of the project? How are you rolling it out at LBF? We want to be at the heart of initiatives to seek out, nurture and champion ethnically
10th April 2018
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