Everything is connected.

Yesterday we (HKU) had a fantastic start of a new course called Art Histories. In 10 weeks all second year Art & Economics students read the great book ‘What are you looking at? 150 years of Modern Art in the Blink of an Eye’ by Will Gompertz. At the end they will write a research report in which they connect themselves in five steps with ‘Father of all’ Cézanne. These connections can be pieces of art or makers from the book or pieces of art or makers the students choose themselves. They connect themselves via a contemporary maker in five steps with Cézanne, each making a unique history art journey. Every week students read two chapters from the book and select 6 works of art/makers and print them on A5 cards. Before they start playing with the cards they will get a lecture in which an example personal art journey from one of our teachers will be given. Connecting Cézanne with a contemporary maker and themselve. In making the connecting every connection has to be validated by at least one source. We gave them Tate’s Ways of Looking to help them what kind of connection their is between the maker-maker/maker-piece of art/pieces of art. The connection can be based on:

• the object
• the subject
• the context

You can download the cards here.

In the 45 minutes workshop after the lecture we discussed the cards of the students. Then the had to make a 5 steps network starting with Cézanne. One of the students made a card with The Joker (Heath Ledger) and another one had Piet Mondrian. Do you know how they connected the two? Isolation. Then another student replaced Piet by Vincent van Gogh and called the connection “Insanity”.

It was an instructive and fun way to learn more about each other and art history. The students that did not make their homework were disappointed. They could not connect, could not play.

Game Over. New game next Tuesday.

Tags: cor noltee, design thinking, art, education, curiosity, creativity