COLORS, BODIES, AND DISTANCES
17 students, 4th grade, Egape School, Urnieta
Teacher: Nerea Arruti
Artist: Maider López
Main curricular subject: Mathematics
Related curricular subject: Geometry
Language: Basque
In this project, the students were meant to answer questions like “What are the shapes and lines around us?,” “Where can we see angles?,” “What happens when we connect dots?,” and “What if we do this with our bodies?” In answering these questions, they experimented with geometry – as part of the Mathematics syllabus –, first through art and then using their own bodies. The goal was to enhance children’s body and spatial awareness, and to help them understand the relationships between their own bodies and the space around them, and between their own bodies and those of other people while developing abstract skills. The activities included performing a single task in different ways, thus producing a variety of works of art, and analyzing topics from multiple perspectives in order to grasp and deepen students’ knowledge of geometry through art.
Looking around, the students had to identify and tape angles. They also played games involving their moving bodies in connection with other bodies and with the space around them. For instance, they were asked to stand in the schoolyard taking up all the space, connect people using cardboard trails and measure the space between them using their bodies as tools.
Finally, they painted large-format murals in warm and cool colors, realizing that cool shades give the impression of distance while warm tones seem to come closer to the viewer. In order to neutralize these visual perceptions, they tried moving the panels around, so that the colors zoomed in or out. The visual effect produced was one of “moving colors”.