MarinArt: education through art in the rural
Posted by Raluca Turcanasu on / 0 Comments
One of the most complex & challenging projects I have ever co-organized was aimed at children and teens in Marin, a village in Northern Romania.
My role was two-sided:
1) Coordinating the communications for MarinArt. A platform for education through art in the rural world.
What did that entice on my side?
- Part of the grant writing team
- Graphic concept: as the event was catered for kids & teenagers, I wanted to have a more visually appealing graphic, combining village photography with eye-candy patters.
- Briefing & content prep: briefing the graphic designer with all real elements and text.
- Corrections on print materials
- Press Release send-out, radio interviews
- Website content writing & management. Here (in Romanian)
- Interviewing facilitators & pitching this content to local and national publications. Here (in Romanian).
Workshop facilitation: experimental photography and writing
Besides being in charge with communicating the entire project, I have also led a playful photography workshop.
Yet, as the pupils came from super diverse backgrounds and families and were aged between 9 to 16, I had to constantly adapt my teaching plan and allow play when the energies went out of focus.
What I have achieved with the kids:
- briefly went through the history of photography and what made this technology emerge
- understand basic principles of composing an image, such as creating tension, avoiding centering the subject, the rule of the thirds
- understand exposure time, depth of field, aperture
- understood how cameras work: built a pin-hole camera and got a clear, visual understanding of the camera’s optics
- a cyanotype workshop, to play & understand there were other tools to capture the world before lenses.
- allowed play to inspire our story, and went out of the Centre’s yard in the village, to find novel subjects and let kids show their village
- co-created a witchy story and wrote it down
- then, went out around the village, again allowing the kids to select the locations most fitting to the story, to illustrate it graphically
- viewed photos and selected the preferred frames
- brought everything together in a digital publication – a Google Site – Visual Stories from Marin.
It was, for sure, one of the most rewarding experiences I have ever had!
