onsdag 22. desember 2010

Jump with care!

All our sense organs are part of the same body. The body carries them around and allows them to experience spaces from different places and in motion. Although the senses are located in the body, they can reach far out, forming a transparent sphere that merges with the physical environment outside the body’s topological form.


“Intimacy” is an art exhibition where visitors are allowed to experience sculpture and installation form the inside – where all our senses are welcomed. Instead of “Do not touch!” the signs say “This art object is fragile – handle with care”. We are invited to experience the softness, porosity, smells, elasticity and infinity of the large, abstract art objects created by Brazilian artist Ernesto Neto.

Moving through, sinking in, and sliding over the artworks make the multisensory experience rich and strong. The exhibition is full of surprises for example when – one experience that something looks very different than it feels. However, some surprises are difficult to explain! One of my the strongest experiences form the exhibition was when I faced an art work which filled a large room, but was mostly invisible for me – just for me! That was somehow scary. When I had some time to reflect about the feeling, I realized that the large horizontal, two-dimensional part of the art work was placed exactly in the same height as my eyes. That was why I could see only the forms above and under the horizontal line in front of my eyes.

A number of research projects in Norway deal with children’s experience of space in early childhood education. One of the projects is located at my school - Vestfold University College: The research project about ECEC space and materiality http://barnehagerom.wordpress.com/ OECD-rapport presents research in early childhood space as important and emerging, especially emphasising the Nordic tradition where also outside spaces are seen as important for children’s learning (OECD, 2006).

OECD. (2006). Starting Strong II: Early Childhood Education and Care: OECD Publishing.

søndag 5. desember 2010

The Craft of Aircraft Construction

One day I visited my little friend (three years and two months old), he met me at the door: “I am making aircrafts for my best friend”, he said. I was curious: “Making aircrafts?!” He picked two small folded pieces of paper from the floor and showed them to me.

I noticed another “aircraft” on the floor. It looked like a folded A4 page on the right way to become a functioning aircraft that might be able to fly around the room. But when I pointed to it, the boy was serious: “That one is not good at all!” implying that the two in his hands were much better. I was wondering which kind of criteria he had for quality of his work? He obviously had an idea that was leading his creative construction. He was though, still not satisfied with the two small forms.
“They were not ready jet”, he said.
“What do you need to complete them?”
“I need tape”, he replied.

He got some tape from his mother, but the construction problem was not easy to solve - not even with the tape - or maybe it was exactly the tape that leaded to new challenges: One had to take it off from the scroll, cut a piece, prevent it from curling, take it off from fingers, and finally places it around an aircraft. Quite complicated task for a three year old – but it is exactly the resistance in the material that made him try out, repeat, explore other possibilities - and learn. Without resistance from our environment we would not get to know about it, nor about ourselves, as Dewey (1934/29005) wrote.

The boy kept trying. His endurance seemed to come from missing and love for his friend who has been away from the preschool for days. The aircrafts were to become welcome-back-presents for his best friend. The boy had probably learned that you can make something for those you love. And here he was, expressing his feelings through creative work. His motivation to fight the sticky tape toward his goal, seem to have derived from his feelings, and his judgement of quality derived possibly from his empathy (Which kind of aircrafts would my friend like?).

Dewey, J. ([1934] 2005), Art as Experience, New York: Berkley Publishing Group.