TIMELINE SCULPTURE UNIT
This sculpture unit was inspired by themes introduced by MassArt’s Looking to Learn program. The third quarter sculpture class taught by June Krinsky-Rudder and myself had the opportunity to participate in the three part program ran by the Looking to Learn educators. This particular group of students was extremely diverse and had many ELL and special needs students. The participation from all students throughout this unit was quite good.
During the first part of the program, the classroom was visited by Diana and India from Looking to Learn. They began by showing our students a presentation of how time had been measured throughout history. The followed this presentation by having our students participate in exercises that got them pondering the passing of time. Each exercise was one minute timed, though the students were not made aware of that until the end of the activities.
During the first minute students sat in complete silence. The second minute was filled with calming electronic music. During the third students were told to spend the time drawing. During the fourth they were challenged to keep a piece of hard candy in their mouth without letting it dissolve completely. After each exercise students were asked to respond on the sheet in front of them about how long or short each activity felt, and how it made them feel.
The second part of the program consisted of a field trip to MassArt’s gallery to view the “Passing Time” exhibition. The exhibition was made up of a number of different contemporary works, such as: sculpture installations, video installations, photography, book arts, and paper sculpture. Students started off the experience in front of two photographic images of the same young woman.
Our students were questioned about how much time they thought had passed between the taking of the photos. Their observations and insights were very interesting. They were both surprised and unsurprised to find that only six months had passed between the photos, one which was taken on the day that the woman had been inducted into the Israeli army and the other taken six months later.
Students spent the rest of the time in the gallery viewing the work and then responding to one or more of the pieces. They were given “scrolls” of calculator tape to respond in written or visual language. At the end of the gallery experience they were given film canisters to put their rolled up scrolls into and told to give their scroll a title.
The following week Diana and India visited us again. This time they introduced the idea of the one-minute body sculpture. They demonstrated the activity themselves at first, and then had the larger group join into a circle to create our own. Then our students were broken into small groups and given the opportunity to choose a few props to use in their group’s one minute body-sculpture. They were not instructed to choose any particular themes, but upon viewing the sculpture themes such power and unity were evident.
After the Looking to Learn experience ended June, the students, and I reflected about the experience quite a bit. June and I decided that working with the theme of time seemed like it would have very rich possibilities. Ultimately our students created their own time-related sculptures, many which described the timelines of their own lives visually. There were a few lessons that led up to their final sculptures, one of which was a lesson on the critiquing of art based on Liz Lerman’s Critical Response Process -- a lesson that I chose to do when I saw that students were struggling with how to make their ideas into three-dimensional realities.
During the first part of the program, the classroom was visited by Diana and India from Looking to Learn. They began by showing our students a presentation of how time had been measured throughout history. The followed this presentation by having our students participate in exercises that got them pondering the passing of time. Each exercise was one minute timed, though the students were not made aware of that until the end of the activities.
During the first minute students sat in complete silence. The second minute was filled with calming electronic music. During the third students were told to spend the time drawing. During the fourth they were challenged to keep a piece of hard candy in their mouth without letting it dissolve completely. After each exercise students were asked to respond on the sheet in front of them about how long or short each activity felt, and how it made them feel.
The second part of the program consisted of a field trip to MassArt’s gallery to view the “Passing Time” exhibition. The exhibition was made up of a number of different contemporary works, such as: sculpture installations, video installations, photography, book arts, and paper sculpture. Students started off the experience in front of two photographic images of the same young woman.
Our students were questioned about how much time they thought had passed between the taking of the photos. Their observations and insights were very interesting. They were both surprised and unsurprised to find that only six months had passed between the photos, one which was taken on the day that the woman had been inducted into the Israeli army and the other taken six months later.
Students spent the rest of the time in the gallery viewing the work and then responding to one or more of the pieces. They were given “scrolls” of calculator tape to respond in written or visual language. At the end of the gallery experience they were given film canisters to put their rolled up scrolls into and told to give their scroll a title.
The following week Diana and India visited us again. This time they introduced the idea of the one-minute body sculpture. They demonstrated the activity themselves at first, and then had the larger group join into a circle to create our own. Then our students were broken into small groups and given the opportunity to choose a few props to use in their group’s one minute body-sculpture. They were not instructed to choose any particular themes, but upon viewing the sculpture themes such power and unity were evident.
After the Looking to Learn experience ended June, the students, and I reflected about the experience quite a bit. June and I decided that working with the theme of time seemed like it would have very rich possibilities. Ultimately our students created their own time-related sculptures, many which described the timelines of their own lives visually. There were a few lessons that led up to their final sculptures, one of which was a lesson on the critiquing of art based on Liz Lerman’s Critical Response Process -- a lesson that I chose to do when I saw that students were struggling with how to make their ideas into three-dimensional realities.