The art workshop results in practical work of the students who are trying to promote unity in diversity by creating a combination of arabesque and modern art. After painting the arabesques, they used wool to connect certain points on their installations. This symbolizes the connections between people in a certain group, community, city, society, country, and the connection between different people in a community such as the European Union.
See HERE for more photos of the workshop.
The students get an even better insight into the beauty of togetherness and the opportunities it offers when at the end of the workshop they see that all of them, as different individuals who are a part of one group, have helped create a common work which is different from the work of other student groups, but still shares some common characteristics with all of them.
In these workshops, the students worked on creating an installation called the Symbolism of Connection, which was designed to help the students better understand the feeling of belonging to a group and being a part of a greater whole by working on the installation together. Through their work, they were introduced to concepts of individuality, teamwork, democracy, tolerance, solidarity, creativity, belonging, etc. The students worked together on the same concept and had the opportunity to showcase their talent and originality. Students in all workshops were divided into six groups, made up of 2, 3, 4, or 5 members, depending on the number of participants.
Students were instructed to first design and draw a geometrical shape on the canvas together. Each student was supposed to draw their own pattern, and then they chose the one to put onto the canvas. Each group used only one color - three groups used yellow and shades of yellow, and the other three groups used blue and shades of blue. After painting, students put pins onto the canvas and tied wool of contrasting color around them. Those who used blue in their paintings got yellow-colored wool and vice versa. The task was to create a different geometrical shape which could relate to the one painted on the canvas, or be completely new, in order to make a good visual impression and symbolize connections between people.
After both these stages, all six paintings were combined into a single work of art. The concept was well-prepared and gave even those students who originally didn’t have much interest in art an opportunity to fit in and do their part in the team. Often those students were the ones who, in the end, were the most active and the most pleased about their work. There were some students who had openly said that they weren’t interested and that they had come only as observers. After creating the sketch and painting it onto the canvas, that student became the main leader and the one to decide who will use what color in which section.
