At the Education Service of the Picasso Museum we have developed our first neighbourhood project over the 2009-2010 school year, a proposal for collaboration with the educational institutions attended by the children who are our neighbours. Our primary aim is to offer the museum as an educational resource for primary and secondary schools in La Ribera for them to use it as a starting point for exploring their reality, as well as work with Picasso in a cross-disciplinary way.
The programme is designed to offer proposals which vary in subject matter, format and duration that are suited to the realities of each institution. We also want to incorporate an artist into the process of designing the project and developing it, since working with contemporary artists contributes modern languages, familiarises the students with creation processes and enables Picasso’s work to be brought into the present.
One of the pictures in the photo studio we set up in the Picasso Museum, working on the concept of group photo
This first year we worked with photographer Lídia Carbonell, and our assignment was to use the Las Meninas series to introduce the students to the world of photography while working with the concept of series. We worked in parallel with sixth grade students from the CEIP Parc de la Ciutadella and ninth grade students from the Institut Milà i Fontanals.
In a first session at the museum, students were able to learn about the Las Meninas series in depth and have a first introduction to photography in an environment as similar as possible to a photo studio.
Another instance of working with the group photo, this time experimenting with the low-angle shot
From this starting point, sessions were done at the primary or secondary school in participation with the photographer and museum staff where the concept of series in photography continued to be worked with, and the students were asked to create one of them about their daily environment. To conclude the project and taking off from the idea of photo montage and using programs like Photoshop or collage, the students created an image that works as a summary or guiding thread to their series.
In the classrooms, students worked with collage and photo montage to construct a synthesis of the series created
It was a very positive experience to develop this project on three sides, between the artist, the school and the museum, and we had considerable involvement from the students and above all the teaching staff, who provided a lot of input and support throughout the project. We will be exhibiting the results on Friday 4 June and throughout the weekend in the museum’s auditorium. We invite you to come see it and share this project with us!
Maria Alcover and Anna Guarro
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