MONA LISA Arts & Media Community Interest Company

TrANSFOrMErS


A Youth Group With A Difference


Boys and Girls aged 11 - 15 years came together in 2009 to learn, play and create!

TrANSFOrMErS are a youth group with a different approach meet Thursday evenings from 6 - 8pm facilitated by MONA LISA Arts & Media and Igan Hayati a member of the local community.

The sessions are divided into two sections - the first hour is spent by the young people learning about themselves and their communities in an attempt to discover how they can become good citizens. Using a series of workbooks giving a variety of examples, exercises, stories and questions to help them learn about social and moral issues. The young people are asked to consider a number of different scenarios and to make their own conclusions about what is the best way to conduct themselves in their everyday lives. This is about helping them to think about their actions and how these have an impact on their lives and the lives of others.

The second hour is their creative time where they are able to participate in a variety of arts activities and projects working with professional artists, community organisers and volunteers. So far they have been involved in the following arts projects:

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Notions of Identity film-making project with artist and film-maker Rhonda Fenwick in partnership with South Bucks District Council, Olympic Flag Making textiles project with textile artist Suzanne O'Donnell, Flux Radio with media student Emma Billingham, Olympic Angels Visual Arts and Sculpture Project with artist and film-maker Rhonda Fenwick and Gina Martin Sculptor, Tree of Light in partnership with Windor and Henley Festivals, Thames Valley Arts and Legacy Trust, Community Curators for Slough Museum with Eleanor Pulfer and Charlotte James.

This is a great way for young people to learn about themselves, value their communities and to explore their creativity. For further details contact MONA LISA Arts & Media.

Community Curators in Partnership with Slough Museum



TrANSFOrMErs have been working with curators Eleanor Pulfer and Charlotte James from Slough Museum learning how to curate exhibitions using some of the Museum's artefacts from its collection. Each week Eleanor and Charlotte brought a variety of historical objects, photographs, recipe books and information to give the group a flavour of what life was like in Slough between the two world wars. They were particularly interested in local cinema, leisure and food. They discussed what might be of interest to them and their community for an exhibition. TrANSFOrMErS decided to concentrate on the history of local cinema and leisure. They will be curating the exhibition about these subject areas which will be open to the general public in Burnham Library. As Community Curators they will be visiting the Projection Room in the old cinema in Slough which is now the Gala Bingo. They will then visit the new place where Slough Museum has moved into. They moved from the centre of Slough High Street into the Town's Central Library after which they will sample some of the leisure activities on offer today in Slough and will be competing against each other at the local bowling alley.

This project has given the young people the opportunity to explore some of the Museum's artefacts and help to put them together for an exhibition. They have also learned about life in Slough long before they were born and indeed even their parents are not old enough to remember the life and times between the wars. Community Curators has been a great experience for the young people and has helped them to gain an understanding at close quarters at how life was and how times have changed. A very worthwhile project indeed.

Community Curators

Three members of the Transformers Youth Group, May Hayati, Imaani Edwards and Matthew Hedger, met in Burnham Library to install the new exhibition of artefacts and objects from the Slough Museum collection. The young people chose leisure, sports and food as their topics of interest to create an interesting exhibition. The items on display date from 1940s – 1960s. All of which helps to give an insight into how life has changed since then. The exhibition runs until May 2012.

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Transformers Have Their Say


  • When I'm at Transformers I feel I can think and open up
  • I like Transformers because I can show my artistic self
  • At Transformers we always do fun things and learn cool stuff
  • I like Transformers because it is really fun and we always do different things
  • Transformers is really fun everyone is nice and kind
  • Transformers is really fun and everyone is really soooooooooooo, nice