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I am going to talk about art. Art as a means to encourage
and strenghthen multilangual and multicultural communication, to build knowledge
about oneself, awareness of and confidence in ones sences.
So, Who am I? By training I am a graphic artist, working with fine art and illustrations for many years. I ran my own gallery , as well as an annual, regional art exhibition for 15 years all together. During these years I worked as artist-agent and educater both within and outside Norway, including arranging and hanging of many exhibitions - also exhibitions of Childrens Art. I feel responsible for the birth of Arendal Childrens Culture Week 11 years ago- and have been a member of the Kidlink family since the very beginning.. The title of my presentation is "Art on The Bridge". In Kidlink this is about the use of art to empower kids to build networks of friends.
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The pre-condition for finding and becoming a true friend
is first of all the ability to introduce oneself in a thrustworthy way. To
do that it is necessary to know oneself...AND we need a common language.
When we want to build global networks of friends across language barriers
words are limited. Luckily we have the Arts. Visual Arts, music and performing
arts are known as the only universal languages. Art also offers a path to
our inner feelings, our sences. To me, it all connects..
Look at a child grabbing a tool to make lines or marks - Feel the childs consentration and its slow awakening awareness of itself being able....to master something. Look at its pride. And soon: The adding of letters, words.... its name. "I Ida did this." What a joy. .The child is exploring itself - and even discovering a tool for communication: Look, This is what I dream. This is how I see things! This is me! In a world like ours with old barriers falling, new conflicts erupting - forcing groups of people to seek shelter in foreign countries with strange languages and cultures, we often are met with predgedism - lack of knowledge - and tolerance. To meet this, the need of a strong selfesteem is crucial. Several years ago, when the fighting in Afghanistan were in the news all the time, at that time it propably were the russians...a leader of a refugeecamp - across the boarder of Pakistan - was interwued by some helpingteams : "What do you need the most now, they asked...? Clothes, tents... He surprised them by his answer: We need paper, colors and pens for our youngsters, he said. They need to write and draw their memories of their history and their culture. What they need most now is to become sure and proud of themselves and their roots, thereby enable them to face the world and the problems ahead. Go and see the Kidlink exhibition in the Library, showing artworks from Gujarati, the center of the earthquakes in India, january this year. There you will see artworks that express the horror, but mostly works telling about their culture and their dreams for their future. They have answered Kidlinks four questions beautifully in english. I have unfortunately for many of you translated them into Norwegian, - but the kids communication through their drawings, tells us stories about their culture and their dreams...enough for us to leave the exhibition with a friendly and impressed feeling.... Therefore, Kidlink, when empowering kids to build global networks of friends, encourage the use of art as part of the training. However we have come a long way.....
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In 1990 we recieved the first artworks together with the
first answers to our questions, being only three at that time. Kidlink was
in its embryonic stage - and was called Norlink. - Communication on Internet
was maybe not in its embryonic stage but certainly in its childhood, and
transfer of artworks on the net - was hardly heard of. Consequently our first
artworks arrived by snailmail, fax - even by hand. They were artworks made
by the kids sent to us as comments to their answers and for us to enjoy.
We did. But at that stage the artworks hardly helped the kids build global
networks of friends..
The childrens interest was however great, and Kidlinks Gallery of Computer art was established in 1991. The idea at that time was to collect art from all over the world, and exhibit it - And we did - during "Arendal International Childrens Cultural Week" as the first place. We showed videos, printouts, original paintings from as far at Latvia and Japan ...and the year after we played the first music made for Kidlink: - "The kidlink song" - made by a 14 year old Latvian boy...now a young composer. It was fantastic - but soon it grew out of hand, out of Arendal, carried by Kidlinks volunteers to other countries and other continents and became lots of interesting projects of all kinds...
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The tecnical tools improved, and soon we
were startled by more advanced works like this computercreation by Kyril
Legovsky, a 15 years old russian boy. He came in contact with the
kidlink-volunteer Klaus Berg in Denmark who was busy with the building of
Kidlink Gallery of Computerart. Our site was one of the few, or. maybe the
only one of its kind on the net at that time, and when Lousiana Art Museum
outside Copenhagen opened their department of childrens computerart in 1992,
Kyril was invited in person to participate.
Now that Kidlink is divided in language groups, it is hardly possible to keep track of all the projects going on...Not all language groups have their own Kidartsites, but have a look at the sites of the Spanish, Portugese, Icelandic, Japanese and Italian ones. Not only has Kidlink grown as an organism - so has our understanding of art. We still have the gallery of computer art to exhibit our childrens work, like several other sites for kids on the net, and there is great interest in the tecnical means and ways to send and produce. But we have also understood the communicative power kids art - as any art, posess. We use kidart on our pages to enchant them, to make them colorful and friendly. We see how our kids art can help us explain and empower our messages. To attract and inform. And they often have a humorous energy that might have the strongest impact at all.... However - even if we understand the importance of art in Kidlink - The Gallery and the projects around it is by far not as able as we would like it to be. We need to work on the presentations, make it easier for the kids to submit their artworks, and we need more volunteers to help working with us, to build Kidlinks Gallery of Computerart - Kidart for short - to the interactive recourse we dream of.. We see Internet as a challenge, offering new possibilities for visual communication to cross boarders. - We also see that internet produce new ways of creating artwork. It is for example possible for several artists to work on the same artpiece at the same time even if the artists are living apart from eachother. A very special experience for those who have tried...
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Kids from Iceland |
Patti Weeg, USA and Isamu Shimasaki, Japan,
have for years been working with art to help bridging the children in Kidlink.
They are true pilots in the work of letting children with completely different
spoken and written language communicate by art and activities online. They
have seen how the kids are getting to know each other and learn to respect
each others differences... I am not going into their work here - because
Patti will describe her work for you tomorrow....
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Carles E.
V. Aaujo |
The net is full of exiting sites made for children. Lots of Swish and Boiing to catch the eye...However, to succeed in connecting kids from all the world Kidlink must continue to be accessable also from lesser technical develloped countries. We must not only look to glossy inventions that may be too heavy to be shown on less powerful screens. We encourage the use of primitive tools - as the Ascii-drawings that were collected in the Kidlink Art97 project initiated by a group of Swedish, Danish and Brazilian teachers. An Ascii drawing is simply made by using the keyboards own letters and signs...showing how creative minds are not dependent on complicated and expencive tools. As a matter of facts most of the artworks in Kidlinks Gallery of Computer Art, are still drawn or painted in the old, traditional way. |
Students from Oppdal in Norway |
And, however welcoming animations, music and filmstrips
showing performing arts, dancing, clowning on the net....I personally love
the way Jorunns pupils from Oppdal in Norway designed their website this
year, to market their place and themselves in Who am I`s Virtual Travel.....
They made photos, drawings and texts. Glued it all together on a piece of
paper - and scanned it. Hoping to attract other participants, and make them
consider themselves as interesting virtul hosts and Oppdal as THE virtual
vacationgoal.... And they got nice contacts too. ....What a blessing to the
others of us not being experts in building glossy webpages....
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Paula Rosberg (13), |
It shall be an honour to have artworks presented in Kidlinks
Gallery of Computer Art, and on our pages. We on our part, will show everybody
and especially the children themselves that Kidlink honors their skill and
their talent. As adult artists demand as a right to
have their names mentionned when their works are published, so shall the
kid. Kidlink believe strongly in the Kids right to tell their name - again
as a link in the prosess to strenghten their confidence in themselves as
a person. At the same time we of course do our best to protect the childs
privacy. Only their name, age and nationality shall be available for others
than us working with this directly.
We are very much aware of the childs copyrights. No one outside Kidlink shall be alloved to copy their work without asking for permission. Somebody once did ask. We found the kid, she said yes, and we saw to that she got a reasonable fee for the use of it... All artworks will be welcomed - as long as it is not obviously offending anybody. I have not seen any yet
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Sara Adler (14),
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New communication technology gives art new opportunities
and challenges. - At the same time, this impersonal, technical world, with
cold screens and hard buttons to click on, demands new ways to "show face"
- to show ones personality! - The need to visualize what hardly can be expressed
in words on the screen is obvious, even when the written language is known,
and the creativity is unlimited. - Look at the use of smiling faces and other
icons and signals appearing in a simple e-mail explaining ..." Hi, I am a
friendly person" - or "I am sorry..." Not always great art, but surely a
way to show feelings and temperament....a glimpse of our soul maybe..? Personally
I have become so fond of these small signals, that I almost feel crippeled
when writing letters by hand..... Well, I`ll have to draw them then..
Kidlink has several projects going on including art. Most interesting and creative projects... Due to the need of building selfesteem to get through to possible friends, the Who am I program is develloped. It will be exciting to see what the use of art in this program, and others, will teach us..Unlike the written language, Art function as a bridge between thinking and feeling. Maybe with more emphasize on art in our programs, there can be found new and better ways for the kid to not only communicate with eachother, but also to discover and communicate with her inner self - her sences...Will there be discovered even more surprising projects, maybe even completely new ways of thinking? Until now we have had projects like "the Bridge" for smaller kids - maybe we can improve this to include old3er kids as well? New ways made possible by using the internet? I do not know. -------- Almost 2500 years ago - In seeking the truth, Sokrates was wondering along the same lines. To find the truth, his most important devise is "Know your self". - For that he had to empty the cup of poisen.. Why did they kill him? Propably because his questions made people start to think and be critical. - A dangerous and threatening quality in many societies even today. We do not know if he concidered art as a tool to get to know oneself though. But as he never wrote anything down, it also can have been a matter of the ear - as so often before. To know oneself is crucial. Who am I? Descartes born 1596 in France said "Cogito - ergo sum" - I think, concequently I am. For hundreds of years his words were interpreted to mean rational thinking only...supporting the modern ideas of dividing the material and the immaterial to find rational explainations to our questions. How stupid. Cogito also means feeling, intuition. We are both rational and unrational. No human beings are lacking sences. Even if one sometimes wonders....We might be materialists, but we have feelings. Even if one have to dig for them... I, naturally am talking from my limited platform of western philosophy - A norwegian professor of philosophy, Viggo Rosvær has pointed out that the slow opening up of the eastern europe - and their visual culture, might help to soften up our barren philosophy which is dominated by will, intellect and tecnology, thereby blocking the contact with our sences. How exciting if the opening up of the world, and the use of the internet could put a new power to this work. Or, What do you think? Of course, if you have no tecnical problems with your eyesight, you have the tecnical possibility to see. But if seeing - like in art - and hearing like listening to birds singing or to music is not practized...The deeper value of our scences -is thrown away - lost. We will act more like machines - and we are easy to manipulate. A Norwegian psyciatrist Finn Skaarderud, author of many bestselling books says: "Lack of self esteem is a national illness". Well, we have to do something about it.
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Megan Grant (12),
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To empower THEIR kids,the commune of Reggio Emilia, Italy,
a country with much more respect for the visual powers than Norway, by the
way, have develloped a special pedagogic method based on the use of art.
Some of you have most surely heard of it. Anyway: After last world war, the
region of Reggio Emilia needed to rebuild the town. - Even the women were
called - The women however did not want to participate if their children
were not properly taken care of! After some thinking, the mayor of the town
decided to build communal Kindergardens. And after some more thinking together
with others, I am sure, they decided to give these kindergardens a special
purpose: Bearing the last war in mind, they wanted to find a way to teach
the children how to become strong individuals, not lame and uncritical
followers.. How could they do that? - In Reggio Emilias kindergardens the
children play and work seriosly with art.
One day they might walk to the market to watch the doves. They run after them and watch them fly and eat and talk.... Back in the kindergarden they might make a small play about the doves. They might sketch their movements as they remember them, and try to form their figures in clay. As a result the Reggio Emilia Kids do not only recognize a dove when they see it - they understand what a dove is. And they work the same way with the understanding of themselves, by drawing, singing, acting..... To see, to hear, to touch, to taste to smell - The sencations we get through our senses, the growing awareness of their impact on us - and how to tacle that, are important Firsts a child will learn, even if they are often not aware of it Remember the sight of the child grabbing a tool to draw a. line, itself. If we can help the kids to be aware of theese tools and powers, show them that WE value what they do and feel, - and support them to be critical at the same time -. Then they might learn to trust their own sences - trust themselves - and have a better chance to grow up to to be an individual, not an uncritical copy of others. Then they are on a good path to find their own safe platform in life - to meet other people, to be proud enough to show respect for others - and be able to build networks of friends that will last..
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Mitva Paulikbahi Shah (6) |
Look at this little Lion!
It is drawn by Mitva Paulikbahi Shah, 6 years old - from Gujarati, India. He is a pupil of the Ninad Evening artschool. He answered the four questions like this: 1.Who am I. "I am a tiny tot, turn over a new leaf" - 2.What do I want to be when I grow up: " To warm up people by way of art. Art can change thinking of people and inspire for grow up" He goes on: 3.How do I want the world to be better when i grow up? - "Good wine needs no bush - so if there is a will there is a way!" 4.What can I do now to make this happen? " To make the world best of a bargain, we need unity and courage. One person cannot change world." Well. What do you say? Strong and wise words from such a smal boy, don`t you agree? Is it really possible that such a small kid can have learned such slogans and be able to put them in the right place as answers to such questions? Is he true? Look at the picture he has drawn. Does it not tell you that this is a wise little lion? My dream is, to get this little lion from india toto share with us his visual culture, and work with us to make Kidlinks Gallery of Computer Art grow, as he says: to warm up people and change the thinking of people and inspire for grow up!.. To encourage us to go on working with art as a tool to empower kids to build a global network of friends...with the help of internet... Then, maybe, together we can change the world? Because, as he says, if it is a will, there is a way! |
