Youth Projects

My Value (on which the project is based with some short description):

This project was about the individuality of each student. It was a way of introduce themselves in the class, to the other students and the teachers around.

The goal of the project:

The main objective of this work was to allow students to create a self-representation exercise that presented their author (s), or the values presented as their own. The final form took on the premise of the identity of a blank sheet of paper and each developed a drawing that was freed from its two-dimensionality.

Method(s) used:

British Drama Games: Who Am I, Photosymbol and Installation.

The process of conducting the project:

This activity took place at Soares dos Reis Art School in Porto, Portugal, and the participants were students who attend the 12th grade at the same school.As a form of integration into the activity, I proposed a first exercise.

I asked the students to stand in a circle, sitting or standing, contrary to the normal disposition of the classroom, since the most important thing was to be able to see all the classmates. It was a small presentation to the class, in which, each student intervened saying two truths and a lie about himself, and the rest group should unveil what was the lie launched. The second exercise focused on value communication.

Still with the intention of creating a dialogue of presentation between the class, several images were shown, numbered. This time, they were seat in their respective place, each one chose, from these same images, a proper value to communicate to the class. The images were in black and white so that attention was focused on the message that each one transmitted and not in any other detail. The absence of a caption was also purposeful, so that the students did not seek another meaning associated with it.

At the end of the exercise, each one communicated to the class what the image they selected and what the associated value meant to them. These two exercises allowed, in totally different environments, an integration of the students in the class, as well as in the activity that I decided to develop with them. After living in the same space, contrasting environments of agitation and silences, the proposal of work was launched. The last exercise was the culmination of this project. It was proposed to students, from the individual presentations made to their colleagues, to construct, either individually or in pairs, a symbolic object.