Unleashing Polyphonic Voices within Students through ensory Activities in the Art Museum

In short

Students developed this idea for an imaginative dialogue with pupils from KNUDEN Cultural School of Kristiansand at Sørlandets Kunstmuseum-SKMU during the intensive week, April 2022.

By Kristin, Anton, Sifra

Set-up
You will need:

• Sheets of paper that a see through. Preferably still see through with three layers. Four for every child.
• Water resistant marker, black and color.
• A place where there is a lot of light so they can trace their drawn faces, this can also be on a light table.
• A art exhibition where there are different styles and artists represented.

Participants:

• Children around the age of 12.
  • We suggest around 2 teachers for 5/6 children. The teachers can participate in the blind drawing.

Process:

• Start with 3 blind drawing, a blind drawing is an exercise where you draw the person in front of you without lifting the marker of the paper AND you cannot look at what you’re drawing. Give the children about 2 minutes per drawing, that’s more than enough. Try to let them use the whole paper, so you want them to draw as big as possible.

• Creating the character
  Move to the second location with the window or light table. The children will redraw their character by using the three faces they have drawn with the blind drawing. Encourage the children to colour their character and name it. When everyone is finished, do a quick round of who their characters are and what. For example, their favourite food is.

• Move to exhibition

  Move to the exhibition and explain that the children need to find the homer of their character. That’s different than just living there, it needs to be their home. When the children fin the home of their character they can scream I FOUND HOME!, when the museum is empty. Take your time asking the children why their character lives and finds home in this exact painting.  Try to ask more questions. The exercise will be evaluated by the children by putting the teachers in different poses that represent how they feel.

Evaluation: 

Connection to PIMDI:

The children have three different dialogues, one with themselves, one with their peers and one with the chosen artwork. In the one with themselves they are looking for the polyphonic voices to give shape to their character. The have a dialogue with their peers at the end of the exercise, where they explain why their character feels at home in a certain artwork, and at the same time they have a dialogue with this artworks. Somehow they feels attracted to this artwork and they try to discover why by placing their character in in.