We are back at the school to meet the pupils again! With our previous experiences we have selected a number of new materials that we want to explore together with the pupils. Movement and a shared experience of movement remain in focus together with visual and auditory sensory impressions.

Strips of corrugated cardboard, a long flexible tube, a thick tube filled with tamarind seeds, wooden beads, bent pieces of steel wire that hold back the contents that flow when it is turned from side to side between the sealed openings, bag-in-box bags that we have tried before but with new contents, liquid with blue-coloured water as well as white-coloured water as well as with small pieces of coloured plastic that move in the air space of the bag, “chips” - a transparent fabric stretched in a circular metal construction, a tent-like formation from an indoor tent. With us we also have a new kind of cordless lamp that can change colour and that can tolerate being sat on or perhaps thrown. Also a “space lamp” from an earlier process with the pupils at Valdemarsro.

Before this occasion we have set up certain guidelines for ourselves, such as trying to present one material at a time in the room and that one of us is more active in the contact with the pupil. Which material from the few we have laid out, or who becomes the one who initially relates to the pupil, we think will reveal itself based on the pupil's interest. Our intention is both to follow but also to invite. A balancing act.

In addition we try to adopt an intention of creating a sequence - a shared spatial storytelling here and now in the moment. We have brought the kalimbas that we have previously used in other contexts to create the conditions for an auditory shaping of the space, something that can signal the beginning of something and later return as an ending. In between we imagine an exploration of one or two of the materials we have brought with us, depending on what the pupil shows attention to, becomes absorbed in and something we can connect to.

When we arrive at the school and meet the pupils, of course nothing becomes as we had imagined. It is exactly as it should be!

On this occasion four of the pupils are present. One of the pupils we have not met before. From the educators we learn that we will first meet the pupil who otherwise does not want to leave the classroom but who since the last time has begun to spend time both in the corridor and in the outdoor environment, something that was previously not possible.

It is there in the corridor that we meet the pupil. At the same time another pupil arrives who moves completely freely between the different spaces and with full energy enters our staged room. The door is open and the room invites with staged light, laid-out materials and several of us present. This pupil has already established an interest in us coming and has an expectation that cannot and should not be stopped! Immediately we have to divide our focus so that one of us stays in the room while the others seek contact with the pupil in the corridor. Is it possible that they want to come into the room? Or is it better to let what arises take place in the corridor? Not wanting too much, not pushing too much, not stressing too much?

The pupil in the corridor has a piece of plastic in their hand which we later learn comes from a laminating machine. The plastic material gives an auditory feedback that cracks and clicks slightly when the pupil moves the long plastic piece in the air. In some way the plastic material interacts with the strips of corrugated cardboard that we have prepared. Moments of shared presence, perhaps communication between bodies and materials, arise by the door window at the far end of the corridor where the pupil stands. We exchange materials, strips of corrugated cardboard for the plastic material. We exchange back. And again. Repetitions of this material exchange and repeated attempts to approach the room, back and forth through the corridor for quite a while. The pupil guides us by showing and moving our bodies with their body. Different materials are tried where these short moments of interpersonal communicative exchange, with the materials as intermediaries, can take place. A bag-in-box that catches the light from a space lamp and a chip that can be explored together tactually and visually. Also how the fabric of the chip absorbs the light. The pupil wants to feel and accepts feeling the material together. Then one of the educators signals that it may be best to return to the classroom. Perhaps to end in time while the curiosity is still there, before the unfamiliar turns into worry. The pupil disappears into the classroom.

Focus is now completely on the pupil who previously came into the classroom. An energetic exploration is taking place, both of the materials but also of the boundaries of what the pupil is allowed and not allowed to do. This exploring and negotiating takes place mainly between the pupil and the educator who is with the pupil. We find it difficult to find a way to reach the pupil. Our intentions and the educator’s intentions collide.

A third pupil enters. They seek contact through hugs and interpersonal communication body to body. How to affirm but at the same time set boundaries? Go along but at the same time redirect in movement? The pupil shows less interest in the materials we have prepared. Instead, attention is directed toward what they know is in the room, hidden in the boxes that always stand in the room and which are placed outside the part of the room we had intended as the staged room. The pupil seems to seek the flow paths – beyond what was intended and prepared – and they find them, of course! The pupil understands that this is what was intended, but what actually happens over here? The boxes are taken out one at a time. The contents are poured onto the floor in the light of the stage lighting. They look up at the educator who does not limit or correct the pupil within this specific context, something we will later have a very interesting conversation with the educator about: The freedom and breathing space that a small area can give, where right and wrong and corrections and demands do not exist in the same way as in the everyday school environment, seems to open up. Where do these free and demand-free spaces actually exist? The importance of the rooms and moments beyond the prepared. The complexity with these pupils is that they can also become stressed when they do not understand the expectations or when routines are broken. This is obviously such an occasion! Something beyond the everyday where other rules apply. The pupil seems to find enjoyment in this freedom.

The pupil we have not met before enters. We meet in movements that fill the entire room. Corrugated cardboard flying, knocking and banging against the objects, against the wall. A great interest is directed toward the lamps, which the pupil wants to explore in more detail. Since we do not know the pupil, we are a little uncertain. Carefully we put aside the lamps that are more sensitive. The new oval-shaped lamp that we try for the first time proves to be very useful. The pupil lies down for a while in the fort. Then the pupil clearly shows when they are finished and want to go out.

During the break we agree that after lunch we will prepare the regular classroom and do this while the pupils are there as an open transformation process of the room with darkening, rearrangement of the tables, and lighting.

Our shared attention is gently directed toward the pupil who otherwise does not leave the classroom and whom we previously met in the corridor in the morning. The pupil meets us at their usual place in the classroom. Another pupil is also in the classroom but is lying down and resting. In the beginning, the pupil shows signs of some anxiety, moving toward the door and the educator who is in the room. But time here proves to be crucial for how this caution can transform into expressions of joy and enjoyment of being and moving with the room and the different objects that are gradually gathered, almost stacked on each other, around the pupil’s space in the room, whose changing characteristics shift with the colours of the light, movement, and directions. A long flexible tube, the bag-in-box bags, pieces of mat… It becomes a long period of two hours. From caution, to acceptance, to enjoying the moment in clear expressions of joy. To be in movement together with the room, the objects, the light. On several occasions we think we are about to finish. But then something new arises to continue. We begin to take down the darkening fabric. But even this becomes a material that can draw the pupil into a shared embracing movement which the pupil clearly shows they want to remain in.

Photo: Johan Danielsson

Text: Ellen Spens