{"id":1363,"date":"2014-11-08T02:28:23","date_gmt":"2014-11-08T02:28:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/somethingcollective.ca\/?p=1363"},"modified":"2014-11-08T02:28:23","modified_gmt":"2014-11-08T02:28:23","slug":"wonder-room-an-artstarts-project-with-james-thompson-elementary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/somethingcollective.ca\/?p=1363","title":{"rendered":"Wonder Room – an ArtStarts project with James Thompson Elementary"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"20141029_135721\"<\/a>Well, this picture pretty much tells it all. \u00a0I can’t say what a treat it was to see 60 pre-teens totally\u00a0silent and captivated while\u00a0exploring their natural environment with all of their senses. \u00a0This was exactly my original hope when I designed the Wonder Room project – to\u00a0awaken student\u2019s awareness and appreciation of the world around them through\u00a0facilitated, interdisciplinary, multi-sensory arts activities. \u00a0The original concept came to me during an “AH-HA” moment that I had while listening to a TED talk, where arts and education guru, Ken Robinson, simply defined the term “aesthetics”. \u00a0He explained how, contrary to \u201canaesthetics\u201d (which numb the senses), \u201caesthetics\u201d, or more largely the arts, enable one\u2019s senses to open, and consequently one\u2019s imagination to spark. \u00a0 Since\u00a0hearing that very cogent definition of this word that had previously seemed so ineffable to me,\u00a0this truth\u00a0has come to inform all of my artistic work.<\/p>\n

\"233404212_M3KLMbgH_c\"
\n<\/a>The Wonder Room\u00a0<\/strong>project was inspired by the Kunstkammer<\/em> (Cabinets of Curiosities) tradition of Renaissance Europe, (encyclopedic collections of objects belonging to natural history<\/a>, geology<\/a>, ethnography<\/a>, archaeology<\/a>, religion, and art). \u00a0And I was thrilled to partner\u00a0with Richmond’s\u00a0James Thompson Elementary on this project, because they were the perfect candidate for this idea. \u00a0\u00a0Their school is adjacent to\u00a0the stunning Terra Nova Regional Park, and they have access to 30 iPads which the students were able to use for audio recordings and photography.<\/p>\n

During our 6 weeks together,\u00a0I had the pleasure to work with\u00a0Ms. McKaskill and Mr. Dimmick’s Grade 5-7 students, who accumulatively gathered natural, man-made and self-created curiosities for their own collective Wonder Room.<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0 \u00a0Ultimately, this colorful space became a\u00a0memory theater of the world as these students saw, felt, heard, tasted and smelled it. \u00a0And they were able to invite their school peers to visit this magical exhibit.<\/p>\n

To build their room, I led students in a wide variety of activities. \u00a0The first of which took place during a nature work through the park. \u00a0For the first few engagements, we focused on two senses in particular.<\/p>\n

\"20141015_112120\"<\/a> \"20141016_113404\"<\/a>SMELL: We collected natural materials for exhibition & for the subsequent creation of homemade perfumes (including pine, rose, mint, and gooseberry essential oils to name a few).<\/p>\n

\"20141015_112111\"<\/a> \"20141016_115809\"
\n<\/a>FEEL: We gathered natural objects for exhibition & from which they later made rub drawings.<\/p>\n

The happiest accident that came from these activities were the impromptu plant designs that each student thoughtfully and artfully\u00a0arranged on their desks to allow their materials to dry overnight.\"20141016_102534\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Next, we explored perhaps their favorite sense, by making experimental cream cheese dips in each of the four major TASTE categories: Sweet, Spicy, Sour, & Savory. \u00a0Through trial and error, student groups created several original recipes, and then voted on the best in each four categories, to be served\u00a0during their final\u00a0Wonder Room\u00a0<\/strong>exhibit. \u00a0The inventive winning combos were (Drumroll Please):<\/p>\n

Sweet: Honey, Chocolate, Chipotle
\nSpicy: Chipotle, Green Onion, Sweet Chili
\nSour: Lemon, Onion, Cranberry
\nSavory: Salt, Lemon, Sweet Chili
\n\"20141021_112955\"<\/a><\/p>\n

For the SIGHT\u00a0room, in\u00a0addition to exhibiting some of the natural materials that students collected outdoors, as well as photos that they took on their\u00a0walks, they were also invited to bring Objects of Curiosities from home (heirlooms, relics, talisman, etc.) about\u00a0which they engaged in a storytelling activity.<\/p>\n

.\"20141029_135712\"<\/a>
\nOnly with students from a school located in such a\u00a0special place, might we have been lucky enough to encounter a bald eagle just 30 feet from our path.<\/p>\n

\"P1030634\"<\/a>\"20141029_133752\"
\n<\/a>Lastly, after some in-class deep listening activities, we took a final walk to capture the music of their environment, using the audio\/video recorders on their iPads. \u00a0These excerpts were then mixed together into the\u00a0Terra Nova Symphony,<\/em>\u00a0complete with seagulls, airplanes, squeaky swings and more, to appropriately represent the Richmond SOUNDscape.<\/p>\nhttps:\/\/somethingcollective.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/Seagulls.wav<\/a><\/audio>\n

Seagulls<\/p>\nhttps:\/\/somethingcollective.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/707.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

Airplane<\/p>\nhttps:\/\/somethingcollective.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/squeaking-porch-swing.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

Squeaky Swing<\/p>\n

For the collective curation and design of their final Wonder Room\u00a0<\/strong>exhibit, teams were organized by a\u00a0super sensory super hero power that they were asked to choose. \u00a0Then, these teams respectively built whatever room related to their favorite SENSE. \u00a0Each room was also designated a mascot, aligned with the animal that shared their sensory super power (IE. Bear – Smell; Catfish – Touch; Butterfly – Taste; Eagle – See; Bat – Hear), and a corresponding color (IE. Green – Smell; Purple – Touch; Red – Taste; Blue – See; Yellow – Hear). \u00a0And Voila:<\/em> The James Thompson Wonder Room came into being!<\/p>\n

\"20141106_120454\"<\/a> \"20141106_120658\"<\/a>
\n\"20141106_120615\"<\/a> \"20141106_120624\"<\/a> \"20141106_120544\"<\/a><\/p>\n

For this final show, Ms. McKaskill and Mr. Dimmick’s Division 2 & 3 students guided nearly 100 visitors through their elaborate Wonder Room,\u00a0<\/strong>allowing each of them to have their own five senses heightened too.
\n\"20141106_131422\"<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\"20141106_131110\"<\/a> \"20141106_131801\"<\/a>\u00a0\"20141106_131124\"\u00a0\"20141106_131653\"\"20141106_131413\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Then,\u00a0to summarize these rich engagements, the students were asked to write haikus reflecting on their sensory heightening experiences. \u00a0 The\u00a0profound sentiments that resulted certainly affirmed my belief in the power of the arts to awaken us fully into the present moment.
\n\"20141106_110058\"
\n<\/a><\/p>\n

\"20141106_110052\"<\/a> \"20141106_110107\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well, this picture pretty much tells it all. \u00a0I can’t say what a treat it was to see 60 pre-teens totally\u00a0silent and captivated while\u00a0exploring their natural environment with all of their senses. \u00a0This was exactly my original hope when I … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-somethingcollective"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1GDjz-lZ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/somethingcollective.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/somethingcollective.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/somethingcollective.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/somethingcollective.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/somethingcollective.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1363"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/somethingcollective.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1363\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1377,"href":"https:\/\/somethingcollective.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1363\/revisions\/1377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/somethingcollective.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/somethingcollective.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/somethingcollective.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}