Year 12 Encounters Art
On Friday 10th of November, whoever entered the St. Louis School was able to admire pieces of art displayed in the courtyard, back garden and garage. But who made these?
Year 12 has just started the IB Diploma Programme and is approaching a subject which is new to them; TOK, or in other words Theory of Knowledge. In the first part of the course, classes are focusing on art and the concepts behind it. The recent trip to the Venice Biennale was an introduction to the new project presented on Friday.
The original idea was to create a pavilion for each form and give it a name and a theme. The pavilions were made and organized entirely by students, with only the supervision of a teacher. Each form was helped with an initial guide, which gave instructions on what to do and a guideline on the necessary organization. Students divided into three sub-groups; one dealt with creating the artwork, the others documented the project’s development and the rest organized the space and how to physically set up the pavilion.
Do you want to know how they coped with it? Well, I’d say fantastically! The student’s attempt turned out to be a success. Not only the pavilions were set up beautifully, but also talent and creativity characterized the exposed artworks, which had the potential to be exposed in a real pavilion! Although, this wasn’t the only positive aspect of the exhibition. The promotion of the pavilions was extremely successful too. Most of the groups sent newsletters informing their peers of the exhibition and in particular, Year 12A created a website entirely dedicated to its pavilion.
Click here to view the Year 12A pavilion site.
Surprisingly for students, art didn’t only mean paintings and drawings, but sculpture, videos, and music too. The crowd was in fact entertained by the notes and melodies of an electric guitar solo by Federico T, and then an American rap cover by Federico R.
Ultimately, I think, that this project turned out to be one of the most successful ones I have personally participated in. It is although important to understand that this exhibition was created not only for enjoyment, but to develop certain skills such as collaboration, which are required in the Diploma Programme.
