Charterhouse Arts Festival

Monday 26 February saw the culmination of this year’s Arts Festival with an evening of art, literature and music – all created, written and performed by pupils.

This is the third year that such an event has taken place and the theme for this year was ‘elements’; pupils studying Art, English and Music (both at GCSE and A Level) had been working for nearly two Quarters preparing pieces relating to this theme. The art exhibition featured a range of work, including several video installations as well as painting and photography.  Much of this work focused on the elements of weather, as well as considering an element as simply part of a thing. A highlight of the exhibition was a deconstructed grand piano (by Alex East, R), with its individual elements reassembled as a cityscape.

A writing competition run by the English department encouraged pupils of all ages to write pieces of poetry and short fiction, some of which were read aloud; the winners of the competition, James Dias (R), Callum Edge (S) and Marco Nardone (V), fought off stiff competition for their prizes.  Four original pieces of music were performed by two extremely talented singers, Alex Pullinger (H) and Gladys Ching (G).  The musical performances were interspersed with readings of poetry in an informal setting, which allowed the audience to move between the exhibition and performance area and appreciate how all the varied elements fit together.