Project for early childhood and primary education students
Expressart. The Portable Museum
This project consists of a variety of ideas that are to be developed in the classroom, using the resources (3D objects, images and text) loaned out to the teacher by the Museum. These materials come in a wooden box shaped like a suitcase, which the Museum loans out before the guided visit. Though the workshop encourages the use of these materials before the Museum visit, there is also the possibility of using them for a follow-up activity.
The principal objective of this is to get the students and instructors to enjoy the works of art and establish a dialogue around them, using personal experience as the common thread, which stimulates both respect and interest in Art as a form of expression, play, representation, and experimentation. Another objective of the project is that students become conscious of their own capacity for expression and develop it freely, minimizing impositions and restrictions where possible, and encouraging them to use elements or happenings as Artists have.
The proposed relationship between learning and teaching are not connected to any single specific area of knowledge. Though it is true that Contemporary Art is the focus of discussion, the resources we offer can be approached in many ways, in respect to both concept and happenings. It is about working and playing around the works and images, and formulating one’s own ideas, opinions, and feelings, using any of the languages within reach, including, indeed, an artistic vocabulary.
We hope to facilitate information and tangible resources for the teachers so that they may carry out a series of exercises and activities in the classroom. For the students, we want to make the content discussed approachable through these innovative and motivating teaching techniques, which incorporate a variety of different ways of learning.
The activities are absolutely flexible and allow for many adaptations to the particular contexts in which they develop. Even the materials lend themselves to other uses that come into play during the activity, making them lively and dynamic resources. The activities are organized in three blocks, each of which deal with different aspects related to the potential meaningfulness of objects and materials, as well as issues of composition. This project is based on the idea that art is a means of expression, play, experimentation, formulation, and representation, and offers infinite possibilities for formulating ideas, feelings, opinions, and emotions, and can use the most diverse materials, objects, and happenings which can, at any given time, mean very different things to each individual artist.
We recommend using the supporting materials before visiting the Museum. In that way, the preparation work done in the classroom will make it easier for students to recognize, identify, investigate, and observe the works on display. If the materials come into play after the visit, students will have the opportunity to discuss questions that could only be brushed over in the galleries: Who are Artists? What do they do? Why do they do it? What are the works like? What are they made of? What do they tell us?, etc.
The guided group tours of the MACBA Collection for those who have done or are doing the ExpressArt project will make sure that they capitalize on the work done in the classroom and the expectations that have come from those sessions. This will also allow for cementing the teaching relationship between instructor and the Museum guide explaining the exhibit.
This educational project have been developed with the collaboration of Marga Berrocal.
