Project I- Care Children, art, relationship and education. Summary document of the training methodologies

Transcription

1 Project I- Care Children, art, relationship and education Summary document of the training methodologies Deliverable Dissemination Level Status Date Summary document of the training methodologies Public Final July 28, 2014

2 Introduction...3 Who are we? Presentation of the two training centres...3 What do we do? Educational objectives of the two training centres...3 Project objectives...4 The two methodological approaches...5 Methodological elements that has been discussed for the hypothesis of convergence...6 Methodological principles based on best practices for children aged

3 Introduction The two museums have compared on a complex but exciting challenge with themselves. Both have several years of experience in teaching using educational methods based on artistic expression Nevertheless the activities had been addressed to children under the age of 6. The ambitious aim of this project was to find a common ground in the two different methods to promote educational experiences in Kindergarten (0-5 years old). Before discussing the methodology adopted by the two museums in their educational activities, it is important to consider the structural and logistic differences. The two educational centres have very different methodological approaches and to establish a line of comparison it was decided to begin with the synthesis of the two main defining elements: who we are, that is their distinctive features, and what we do, that is their educational objectives Who are we? Presentation of the two training centres The Centro per l arte contemporanea Luigi Pecci, as its name says, it is not a museum but a Centre ( centro means centre ). A Centre where artists meet, a centre for dance and music, but overall a Centre that works as a museum too. This means that the Pecci Centre has its own private collection of contemporary works of art, shown on a rotating basis: the works switch, they change and grow in number thanks to the acquisition policy of the Centre. Often the new acquisitions derive directly from the temporary exhibitions the Centre hosts. And this is its second feature: every three or four months a different temporary exhibit is organized. The rooms change in shape and colour, walls are built or taken down leaving the visitors astonished but a bit lost: at first sight they do not recognize the location they have seen before. The structure of the Pecci Centre is the perfect container because it is strongly connected with its own contents: the works of art do not fit in the museum, it is the museum that adapts to them! The Statens Museum for Kunst reflects instead the idea of museum, actually it is museum par excellence: it is the National Museum of Art and its permanent collection belonged to the past Danish royals. The gallery has a huge collection covering a very long period of time: from the early XIV century to the cutting-edge contemporary art. The collection includes international artists from Mantegna to Picasso, but the majority are Danish artists. One of the most fascinating thing about the SMK is the perfect architectonic connection between the historical building and its great modernist extension: the two together create a magic and cosy place even for the contemporary works of art. What do we do? Educational objectives of the two training centres

4 The Education Department of the Centro per l arte contemporanea Luigi Pecci, born in 1988, promotes peculiar programs for schools, in order to get the children in contact with contemporary art, taking possession of the visual language through laboratories. The Meeting with Bruno Munari had been fundamental for the activities if the Centre as he defined the guiding lines of the educational paths along with the staff. From 1988 to 1992 the artist followed the start of the laboratories for children from 6 to 10 years old approaching the activities on a playing basis. This method developed and enriched over the years thanks to the work of Dr Riccardo Farinelli, who has worked with Dr Munari himself. Today the activities of the Pecci Centre are addressed to student from 5 to 18 years old; they follow Munari s idea of an art not to be told but to be experimented, we do forget words, but we do not forget the experience. The methodology of the Pecci is based on a simple principle: TO TELL NOT WHAT TO DO, BUT HOW TO DO IT, following three fundamental points sign, shape and colour. There is a second principle that characterizes the Pecci s method: the students are led through the exhibition rooms only after the laboratory, this is to prevent the children to be influenced from the works of art, and to create the feeling of satisfaction and surprise in recognizing their own work in the artist s. The educational goal of the Statens Museum for Kunst is to allow students to observe the art accompanied by a museum educator. All teaching is based on dialogue and varies from interviews with the students, in small exercises and mini-lessons, to make students aware of their work and to give the appropriate translation in the form of photography, painting, sculpture, collage, etc... All courses, in addition to knowledge of the museum itself and of the educator, allow above all a personal encounter with art and the active participation. The interaction among students, artwork and museum educator takes place inside the art gallery. At Kunst, works of art are deepened in their expression, form, content, and especially with the immediate experience of the students. The students are encouraged to change their habitual ways of thinking, finding stimuli that arouse their curiosity, their creativity and their ability to wonder and critically think Project objectives It was initially planned the comparison between the two system in order to integrate the identified best practices into a new methodological approach and to exploit the experience of both the educational centres. Considering the complexity of this objective, both for the lack of time and for the great cultural difference, it was decided to redefine the objectives as following:

5 Compare two different methodologies of museum education Growth competencies of teachers on the basis of a shared project, New artistic and communication languages to be learned and replicated autonomously in class Documentation of work done in class Experimentation with new beneficiaries: children 1-4 years The two methodological approaches An initial examination showed that the two methods seemed to be based on principles diametrically opposed. The trainers of the Statens Museum for Kunst work starting from the museum and the opera. The students are initially placed in front of a work of art. The task of the educator is to stimulate all their senses to guide them through the emotions and feelings that each of them derives from the observation in order to infer from it the inner journey that the artist has followed during the creation. In the end, students are asked to reproduce or translate the emotions and moods evoked during the workshop into an artistic work. For example, in front of a painting of the sea, the children are invited to simulate the waves, and in the meanwhile they can be stimulated by sensory experiences through sight, touch, sound or anything else that remembers the sea. When the experience is over, the children are led through artistic expression to recreate what they have experienced. During the laboratory, there are not rules, or in case, they are useful only to be broken. Creativity, in any form, is the only valid reference. The methodology used in the Pecci laboratories is inspired by the work of Bruno Munari, artist and father of the Italian and European design, which was also involved in teaching. The Munari's methodology starts from the emotions and feelings and then comes to works of art. First, the students are led to understand the possible means of expression, involving all the senses, many of which are new discoveries. For example, during a workshop children can be asked to figure out in which shapes a sheet of paper can be transformed with cuts. They are asked to answer this question by "doing", that is by actually cutting the paper. When creativity is exhausted, who runs the lab offers a second activity: draw eyes. Then he asks children to pick one and drop it on one of the cut figures (a choice from them). Immediately, because of our perceptual memory, the paper will become a "character." In this process, contrary to what happens in the laboratories of the Kunst Museum, the rules are strict and are used to overcome the linguistic stereotypes, which are essential in verbal communication, but they hinder the expressive language. Only at the end of the workshop, students are approached to works of art to understand them through the means and the emotions through which were created. In brief, the Danish trainers start from the work of art and decompose the emotions, the impressions, the feelings and the meanings that can belong to it. It 'a process that culminates in the free reproduction of what each student has experienced, and means of expression are freely chosen and freely used in order to give the better form to each individual and creative experience. The trainers of the Centro Pecci start from the

6 expressive means and help students to know them. Then combine expressive means with the complex of feelings, emotions and impressions related to the work of art, before considering their conceptual meanings. Eventually, through the synthesis and integration of the two components, students are invited to read and interpret autonomously the work of art chosen for the laboratory. Methodological elements that has been discussed for the hypothesis of convergence Despite the many differences underlined, trainers have identified a lot of elements to create a common educational project. In particular, the following methodological elements have been identified to define the basis for the common work with schools: - Working together in a different structure from the school: the museum. - Learning by doing, working, creating. - The experience based on rules and techniques derived from the work of art itself - Laboratory heuristic-participatory - Activation of all the senses: by touch, sight, smell, hearing. - Activation of memory, at the time of the choice of material, and especially the ability to choose - Stimulating the ability to narrate and dramatize - Stimulating the expressive ability and curiosity Methodological principles based on best practices for children aged 0-6 It took me a few years to learn to paint like the painters of the renaissance; to learn to paint the way children do took me my whole life (Pablo Picasso). At the end of the experience, it was possible to recognize the methodological elements that the two educational systems can offer to build a model based on their best practices. In particular, great attention has been given to school laboratories, which have highlighted the factors most suitable for the age of the children involved and which have allowed the trainers to highlight the principles more effective and more engaging for very young students, including the following : - The centrality of the work of art; - Stimulating reflection and helping to understand not what the artist really wanted to do but the personal idea of the work of art: painting, sculpture, installation etc.; - Creating knowledge through curiosity; - With younger children, the laboratory needs to be less structured; - Leave liberty for children in the museum and in front of works of art; - See the art as a game, the basis is the fun, the final result is secondary.