With the pupils of St. Laurence’s National School, Sallins, County Kildare

Inspired by the words of Neil Armstrong

Financed by the Department of Education and Skills through the Per Cent for Art Scheme

Our practice of art is about working with people by bringing them into a participative/perceptive loop. This often centres around workshops where we prepare the material that will make up the final work. These have often been photo or film shoots, but more recently we have been making drawing projects, challenging children to represent what comes from their own imagination or the collective imagination of our society.

With a series of projects that began in 2009 we have been exploring the desire to fly and the idea of weightlessness, often working with trampolines and other gymnastics material. With ‘One Small Step One Giant Leap’ we continue this playful exploration of weightlessness - or rather the almost-weightlessness that Neil Armstrong and his fellow astronauts must have experienced when they walked on the surface of the Moon. Perhaps one day schoolchildren will be able to go to the moon and explore the real experience, but in the meantime, moonwalks have become part of our collective imagination, and perhaps it’s much better that way because every man, woman and child has equal access to the experience!

Denis Connolly & Anne Cleary, November 2012

Composition

Workshop and photoshoot, March 2012