Art Club 1.06: A look in the mirror

THEME OF WEEK 1:06: A look in the mirror

25th February and the 3rd March 2015

Art Club with Fundación Junto Con Los Niños - JUCONI 

facilitated by the Charlotte Miller Art Project in Guayaquil, Ecuador

IDEA AND AIMS:  To continue with the introductions in the new Art Club groups through a task that has the interesting addional element of using light as one of the materials in the workshop:  each child creating an image representing themselves using colourful transparent plastic sheets cut out and glued onto clear acetate.  

PROCESS: 

1. Small children work as a team to decorate a large frame front and back with patches of tisse paper in shades of blue and grey. 

2.  Older children work individually to create an image of themself (and any small brothers and sisters who may be decorating the frame), by cutting out simple shapes from various colours of tranparent plastic sheets, and layering them up to create a funll-length self-portrait.  Write names and ages on the acetate and add in any details to the image with a permanent marker. 

3. Back in the office facilitators join all of the children's self-portraits together using transparent sellotape, and grouping the children into siblings, cousins, neighbours and sectors.  Mount the whole piece in the frame, ready for addition to the JUCONI carnival cart.

Explaining the process by looking at facilitator examples in Sergio Toral, pointing out how the sun shining through the papers makes the colours ome to life and the layering effect mixes new shades of the colours used:

Decorating the frame in Sergio Toral: 

Working on individual self-portraits: 

Using light as a material in the artistic process: Emily's beautiful experiments, encouraging the children to play with their work in the bright sunlight in Socio Vivienda: 

BACKGROUND REFERENCE FROM GUAYAQUIL:

1. Family members on car windows (below).  

It is really common here in Guayaquil to see stickers of family members adorning the back windos of cars, typically in white cartoon styles.  You also often read the names of the different family members on back or side windows, including mum and dad, and all of the individual children.   For me, this is a really sweet and "tierno" ('affectionate') detail of family life here in Guayaquil, and it always makes me smile to spot cars decorated like this:

2. Giant stained glass 'windows'. 

In a couple of spots around Guayaquil you can see these huge frames mounted with colourful stained glass scenes of Guayaquileño history.  This one is mounted just outside the bus station Terminal Terrestre, where you can catch a bus out of the city to anywhere else in Ecuador.   Similar to these installations providing a window into the story of Guayaquil, we see this piece of work from the kids as a 'mirror reflecting' or a 'window into' their lives and families.  Both public and Art Club pieces of working interacting with and dependent on the strong sunlight typical at this spot on the equator line.   

and that's the story of how we arrived at this: