THE artistic work of a group of Basingstoke students has gone on display in a town centre art gallery.

Pupils from Queen Mary’s College (QMC) currently have their art project, on the theme of ‘upcycling, on display at the Willis Museum in the town centre.

The project, organised by West Berkshire and North Hampshire Open Studios, was for students to take an old Open Studios tote bag from last year and create something new from it.

This was achieved with the help of multimedia artist Valentina Tikhonova, who helped the pupils with the visual research and design development of their projects, which have taken many different forms.

The pupils designed tea towels, scarves, tapestries and cushion covers, among many other ideas.

Valentina said: “I wanted to help teach the important idea of helping the environment through reusing the bags.

“I had a talk where I explained the nature of the task and helped with the visual development of the ideas.

“All the students collaborated well and they came up with a great many ideas and worked hard on them. The skills they are learning at QMC are great.”

There was also an element of competition as the aim was to create and make a design that used the bag, but also showed off Basingstoke.

The winning design was a top designed by pupil Emilia Biddiscombe.

Valentina added: “The results are stunning.

“They have learnt new techniques, and hopefully they have all learnt something that will be of use and they can reuse and upcycle more.

“They have learnt more about the design process, and have hopefully raised their awareness of the environmental impact.”

The project was organised by Open Studios committee member Sharon Perris, and the work will be on display until May 25.