Arts Explored # 9-
Guerilla Art
Many years ago, when I was a Girl Guide it was not unheard of for myself and my troop to engage in community service. When people think of Girl Guides what comes to mind is little girls dressed in blue singing songs and trying to get people to buy their cookies (which by the way are delicious). We often sold things such as daffodils for cancer, participated in park clean ups in the spring and also did something less people would have heard of. We spent many weekends going around residential streets and painting little yellow fish beside sewers. The point of this was to help remind people that what we put down sewers goes to lakes and can harm wildlife. As we painted our fish many people would stop and ask what we were doing. We responded by explaining that sewers lead to lakes and that everything we put down the sewers can harm the ecosystems within the lakes. Along with telling people we also handed out door hangers showing hocking pictures of the horrible things people put down sewers, as well as explain a bit about the project.
It is not unheard of for people to put garbage down sewers, but on top of that people put more hazardous waste such as paint and other harmful chemicals. Many people were shocked to hear this, and some also admitted to have put garbage down sewers once or twice. The point of this was to get word out to people about the issue, and with the amount of people who stopped to ask questions word spread quickly.
Seven years ago I and my fellow troop members painted fish on my street. They have since faded or been paved over. I remember as a child telling everyone who I saw trying to put trash down the sewer all about the reason why the fish were painted there. Sometimes people passing by would point them out and ask their friends why the fish were there. It was a noticeable thing regardless if people knew the message behind it. This long ago project was my inspiration for this blog. On one of the first really beautiful days this spring I headed out onto my street with chalk (because I would need special permission to use paint as my street is privately owned) to draw some fish beside sewers.
While doing so my brother came up behind me and asked me what I was doing. I had to explain to him, and he remembered the previous painted fish. As I was finishing up one of my neighbours came up to ask what I was doing. She is a six year old, and as soon as she saw the chalk she was very interested. I explained that I was drawing fish beside sewers because it reminds people not to throw garbage into the sewers. She looked at the fish and then looked back at me and said “I promise not to throw my garbage down there anymore” and ran off to meet up with her friend. Whether or not that little girl is the only one who understands why the fish is there at least the message made it to one person.
Future Implications
In terms of future implications for early childhood education I strongly believe that it is important to teach child as much about the environment as we can, as well as teach them ways to help preserve our world. In the case of this project it could be done as a class. This is something as a teacher that I would look into doing. The organization also has resources to help teachers and students learn more about the implications of throwing garbage down sewers such as colouring books, regular books and a song (Trout Unlimited Canada, 2009). The organization has also branched out to include activities for older children such as talking about the chemistry side of the issue. Therefore this activity whether it actually involves leaving the classroom to paint fish, or even just using the resources to teach children about the issue is a wonderful way to teach children about the implications involving polluting sewers (Trout Unlimited Canada, 2009).
Space:
The definition of space according to Schirrmacher and Fox is “the total area defined by the size of the artist’s paper or canvas” (Schirrmacher & Fox, 2009, p. 368).
In the case of this project I think space is important. In the case of painting the fish it is important to make sure that the fish is in contrast to the sewer a decent size so that people will see the fish more than the sewer. The person painting the fish could also make the fish giant, taking up a large portion of the road but then the association between the fish and the sewer. Therefore the size of the artist’s canvas cannot be too big, nor too small. Thankfully Trout Unlimited Canada provides stencils that are a good size in comparison to the sewer, therefore taking control of the artist’s space (Trout Unlimited Canada, 2009).
References
Schirrmacher, R., & Fox, J.E. (2009). Art and creative development for
young children (6th Ed.). Belmont, CA: Delmar.
Trout Unlimited Canada. (2009). Yellow Fish Road. Retrieved April 10, 2011, from
0 comments:
Post a Comment