Festive Spaces is an art and community programme for children at the Battersea Arts Centre, bringing creative workshops to primary schools throughout Wandsworth. Charlotte Pawle reports.

Producer Ruth tells me that Festive Spaces, a collaborative project allowing children to work with artists in new and different ways, is something festive and fun for them to enjoy. "The project has increased the children's confidence and enjoyment of school".  

To see just how creative and imaginative these children are, we need to find their rooms by following a secret trail of carefully placed pictures. We spot some feathers and follow them into a room of paper wishing feathers floating around the room. Each one has a wish on it that a child is hoping will blow through the air and come true. Some want to become superheroes, kings and queens whilst others dream of bright rainbows and chocolate factories. We hope they come true too and off we creep to Jupiter's feast.  

A projection on the wall displays an array of the children's families and friends feasting their eyes on the paper feast below them. Mmmmm! Pizza, ice-cream, cakes and other sugary classics are in attendance.  

We lick our lips and spot a gingerbread man who we follow all the way across a creaky old wooden attic until we hear children's laughter and catch a whiff of warm baked ginger. We peep round a door, unsure if we should be in this dark and lifeless part of the building, and discover a dimly lit room with ‘once upon a time' written in gingerbread letters across the wall. Colourfully decorated gingerbread men with ribbon bowties are dancing on a sea of colours. Above them are mirrored faces which catch the spotlight and bounce around the walls.  

Trails of fallen snowflakes soon distract us and lead us to a room of sleeping plasticine children who are dreaming of snow. The floor creaks as we tiptoe around the room, we don't want to wake them so we follow the aeroplanes flying across the walls.  

The planes drift over to an icy foil city where they fly in circles close to the ceiling. Wrapped in gold, blue and silver, they look as if they could turn into Christmas presents that will drop down to the chimneys below. The excitement of what might be in store for us next wills us to carry along the trail of our newfound adventure.  

Traces of sparkling crowns lead us to a cupboard full of beautiful dressing up outfits. We can hear the children telling us why they love the outfits so much. They feel soft, warm and safe. But what are those footprints we spot across the narrow corridor?  

Our footsteps echo around us as we follow the path down a winding staircase into a garden of shoes. Each pair seems to be sprouting something out of them. On closer inspection we see that they contain treasured possessions and words; the things that make the children happy like family, their favourite foods and their toys. As we carry on along the trail we find ourselves in a telephone booth.  

We pick up the phone to hear ‘dup dll luh dpp duh dhh ... You have made it this far. ... Listen very carefully, we will say this only once ...' The epic music gets louder hitting us from all angles. We drift off into an imaginative spoken journey, with enchanting sound effects, across a chocolate river that we can almost taste, with dangerous creatures that make us jump and treacherous tasks along the way. Finally we arrive at the ‘greatest party in the world' hearing cries of excitement from the children. Are we at the Battersea Arts Centre or in the middle of a Jerry Bruckheimer production?  

As we step back into reality after our long and thrilling journey, we feel changed. Our senses feel heightened and the world around us shimmers with ever-so-slightly more magic than it held before.

For more on the BAC's programme go here.