At the end of March I took part in the ‘Fine Arts for FINE Learning’ learning activity, I was very interested in participating there because it mixes my great hobbies: art, education and cultural exchange. Plus, it was close to my home. I thought it was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up!
During these days we have done artistic activities following the FINE methodology: Focused, Inclusive, Nurturing and Engaging, activities that will be part of a digital book and which will be available to everyone.
After I had participated in exchanges in different countries, I think it was time to experience one in Catalonia! It has been a unique experience, without the excitement of traveling to a new country with a different language, but with all the pride of showing my land, teaching my language and sharing our customs. It has given me the chance to meet very talented people, artists and facilitators and it has been a great opportunity to continue learning and gaining experience in my professional field.
As an “innovation”, in this project I had the opportunity to facilitate an artistic activity to my colleagues. It was the first time, I enjoyed the experience a lot! Wish I could do more soon! I decided to do an activity based on the “cadaver exquisit” technique used by the Surrealists to create works together. My proposal was to draw a character by different people, without knowing what the other persons did. Finally, we see the result we have created together, and give a personality to the character or to create a story using the various characters. I choosed to do this activity because I thought it was good to show the diversity of people who made up the group, it’s fun and it allows you to draw in a relaxed atmosphere, without pressure or prejudices.
I consider that the activity complies with the methodological proposal of the ‘FINE’ project because it is Focused: it allows the development of creativity and imagination; it is Inclusive, because it is a simple activity and does not require many adaptations, so everyone can participate, and also the creation of characters allows to feature different kinds of bodies and people with very different characteristics; it is Nurturing, because through art we can learn a little more from the rest of people who are part of the group and because it allows to practice new materials and ideas until learning to dominate them; it is Engaging, because every participant is an essential part of the activity.
I am satisfied with how the activity went, all the participants got involved and the results were fun. At the end, we talked about possible variants of the activity, which I find very beneficial to have more ideas and know how to adapt it to other groups of people and social and training goals. Some variants may be, for example, shorten the drawing time, use large cards, do it in groups of three (instead of the whole group), add more body parts… and so on.
I am very grateful to the Fundació Catalunya Voluntaria, the creators of the project and all the participants for these FINE days! This experience is just the spark that will start something bigger!
