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Moberly with pia massie and Yunuen Perez Vertti

AIRS artist Pia Massie worked with Moberly students in an eight-week Pilot Residency. The overarching vision for Pia’s program was to offer a tactile, experiential immersion through art that focuses on the beauty of the natural world and our inter-connectedness within it.

Pia guided students in exploratory, hands-on, place-based art initiatives that exposed them to new materials, processes and themes and provided teachers with rich professional development.

A love and care for the earth is a critical capacity that is vital for a sustainable and just future, and one that is increasingly hard for students to cultivate in an urban and highly technologically mediated environment. Many students have never touched dirt, collected rocks and sticks or taken the time to notice the plants and trees that grow on the school property and the medicine garden in the adjacent field.

Students with Pia in the garden

Pia's residency was focused on awakening all the senses at an early and critical age, to a love of the natural world and to the creative capacities that are within all of us.

Pia guided 3 primary classes through a multitude of projects and discoveries that honoured process over product.

Students were introduced to the work of artist Andy Goldsworthy, and the idea of using natural materials in the art-making process.

Student work inspired by a documentary about Andy Goldsworthy, and a student engaging with an Andy Goldsworthy book.

Students learned about plants and trees through observational drawings, creating images with natural materials, and even using sunlight as a medium of expression.

Student work engaging with trees

Students learned about insects as pollinators.

Student work

They worked directly in relationship with the neighbouring community garden that features Indigenous plants, run by Metis gardener, Lori Snyder. This outdoor site became the focal point for engaging our students in learning, observing, caring, creating and deepening their appreciation for ALL our relations.

Student responses to being in the garden.

Birds flying in the sky, feels good, fresh air, so many trees, looks good.” – Moberly student

The final project of the year was "Creating Worlds" in which students made dioramas. Students added an image of themselves to their worlds to show that anytime they wanted, they could enter into in their beautiful world through the imagination.

I loved making my mini world box. You see me, inside in my own nature. I am with a bear and I am helping him to get ready for his hibernation. He is finding food before too much snow comes. I liked making my mini world because it looks like a real forest.” - Moberly student

Pia said, “Mostly it’s just about the practice, about thinking creatively.” Her goal was to help students “[understand] how the world works and how we make meaning in the world.”

Teachers at Moberly also found Pia's residency to be important and eye-opening.

I found this program valuable not only for my students, but for me as a teacher. I was exposed to so many ideas for ways to do art that as a Kindergarten teacher I would have previously viewed as ‘too difficult’ or ‘too complicated’ for my little learners… AIRS helped remind me that art, especially for our youngest learners, is often about the process not the product.” – Mrs. Giles, kindergarten teacher

It was incredibly beautiful watching my students try new things and be proud of their creations.” – Mrs. Mach, grade 1/2 teacher

AIRS provided students with a new way of observing the world around them; of connecting with nature and with each other; of slowing down; of telling their personal stories; of discovering new materials, interests, and talents; and of engaging with the process of inquiry through asking questions, reflecting, collaborating, making, and sharing.” – Gabi, grade 3/4 teacher

Moberly students in Grades Four, Five and Six explored stop motion animation with filmmaker Yunuen Perez Vertti in her eight-week AIRS Pilot Residency.

The goal was to help students develop an understanding of the use of visual language to represent their learning and understanding.

The Residency's theme was to explore untold stories related to Japanese Internment Camps, The Chinese Railway Workers, and Residential Schools.

Students researched the topics and read stories they haven't heard before around these subjects. These themes allowed them to emphasize the use of technology as a tool for storytelling.

Students worked collaboratively to create their own stories. After a few brainstorming sessions, they went through the filmmaking cycle of pre-production, creating storyboards and scripts, filming their stories and post-production, during which they added graphics and sound to finalize their pieces.

Students' creativity and problem-solving skills were on display during the production design. Students used a wide range of materials to create their sets and characters for their stories—including cardboard, plasticine, construction paper, moulding clay and lego.

Yunuen taught lessons on how to operate video, audio, and lighting equipment. Students had a lot of fun working behind the camera and in front of it.

On the last day of the residency students interviewed each other and reflected on their stop motion projects.

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