EXPLORING THE THEME One of the important aspects of making the mural was that the teenagers engaged with the themes behind the 驶Imagine始 project and that they expressed some of these values in a visually creative and positive way. During the process the group explored such questions as: What kind of future can you imagine for yourself, your community and your world? What problems do we need to challenge to create this future? What values are important in shaping the future you imagine? In order to do this we used non-formal learning techniques, where the emphasis was placed on exploring these questions with activities and through creative expression. It is easier to understand something you have experienced than remember something you have been told!
EXPERIMENTAL COLLAGES During our first workshop we asked the group to create some collage pieces to generate visual ideas. The group were given a selection of printed images, photocopies, magazines, patterns and keywords, and asked to come up with some visual ideas. One outcome of this exercise was that the group felt the contrast of black and white elements with bright colours was visually suggestive of the theme of 驶imagination始, and we decided to incorporate this element into the design for the final mural.
creating figures for the mural Another way to generate responses to the themes was to get the group to physically demonstrate some of the values we had talked about. We asked the teenagers to play a charade game where they were split into groups and given 3 minutes to come up with a pose that would express some of the values behind Globalfest to the rest of the group, who then tried to guess what those values were. Some of the words chosen were:
FRIENDSHIP
CREATIVITY
IMAGINATION
We took several photos of each pose and picked the best ones for inclusion in the mural. Each group worked together on paper collages of their own figures, incorporating patterns relating to the Globalfest theme in the final design (more details of this process can be found in the 驶step by step guide始).
CREATIVE WRITING EXERCISES Trying out a few simple word games was a big help in coming up with a slogan for the mural. Initially the group did a short exercise where they completed sentences relating to the five senses with a single word. We reminded the group to imagine the mural being in Bishop Lucey Park, a place where people come to relax and escape the busyness of the city centre.
We continued with another creative writing exercise during the next workshop which involved reading out the Globalfest mission statement before cutting out the words and
reassembling them into sentences. The group were given a minute to come up with a slogan or phrase that they felt would work with the mural, and asked to read it to the group. This was quite a quick and easy exercise to do, and the group came up with several slogans each in a short space of time.
Parts of these slogans were eventually incorporated into the final text for the mural. By applying their own statement to the mural at the very end, the teenagers really reinforced the values and themes they had explored during the project.