On July 14-16, The Carle, in collaboration with Smith College, hosted an institute for educators. Learning through the Arts and Literature: A Collaboration Celebrating Innovation and Inspiration in International Education featured presenters from Pistoia, Italy, the University of Florence, and local educators.
On the third day of the institute, attendees heard from Lella Gandini and Cathy Topal about materials as provocation and inspiration. Reflecting on the roles of teachers and children as researchers, their presentation shared images of children exploring paper napkins from the book Children, Art, and Artists (Reggio Children) and words from Vea Vecchi. Setting the tone for the 3 concurrent studio sessions (paper was the theme) directly following, Kathy said this about exploring materials:
“Its not about making something, but about how it looks here, how it looks there. (Working with materials is about) the pleasure of moving things around.” With that we all split off into various spaces of the Museum.
Cathy Topal facilitated a session around exploring the possibilities of white copy paper then engineering it into a bridge spanning 18″.
Colleagues from Pistoia invited their session attendees to fashion imaginative garments and accessories from many different kinds of paper.
and I facilitated an exploration called Thread & Paper. Check back tomorrow to see what happened in my session!
