SEMINAR

WORKSHOPS- COLLAGE

 

Target group: groups facing inside differences, which are making teamwork harder, size of the group depends on you access to materials and place.

 

Objectives: 

-stimulate creativity of participants,

-express difficult social topics in artistic way,

-give possibility to show similarity,

-give possibility to look at social topics from perspective of someone else

 

Introduction: What helps us include other people in our reality? -Finding similarities, getting to know their perspective, identifying with what they are feeling or thinking about some topics...

By making a collage participants can share their beliefs, opinions or feelings they're  experiencing in non-verbal way, which is sometimes easier. 

They can also feel the 'flow' during this activity, which is construct made by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, which consists of being involved in something so deeply, that people feel satisfaction by what they are doing, lose track of time, don't listen to internal monologue and don't care about external motivation.

 

Experiencing it in a group, makes stronger bond, creates feeling of unity, and give participants peace.

 

Preparations: 

A. Topic- you can give specific topic of collage or you can let patricipants decide what they wanna do, if you want let their creativity out.

B. Materials- scissors, glues, paper- the best each for one patricipant. 

C.Magazines

D. You can also print some choosen pictures from Pinterest if you want to do specific topic. 

E.Additional: Decorative paper, decorative tapes, stickers, markers.

Optional: speaker, playlist.

 

Workshop-instruction: 

1. Gather participants by one table with the materials. Tell them what you're gonna do, on what topic and things written in the aim- so they would know what is final goal of the  activity.

2. Tell them to not sign their collages. In the end you will do your own small art gallery, so they can see what  everybody made, and could find similarities. Tittle also can be useful beacuse it's also shares some meaning. 

You can use your own rules, but tell about them:

-how much time do they have,

-how big should be collage,

-which materials can they use.

 

3.Put on some good music, and start creating!!!

 

4.From time to time inform participants how much time left.

 

5. At the end, put all collages in one place, nad do "museum visit". Then you can organize discussion about what they noticed in differences and similarities in collages- for example what made them closer to some and which moved their heart.

 

WORKSHOP- HOW IT WENT:

Table with materials has been prepared earlier. I told participants about goal of the workshop, what we gonna do, and the rules of using materials. Topic was unrestricted, beacuse I wanted participants to use some internal passion for doing it, and even without topic to try understand other motivation and notice similarities.Beacuse of fatigue od participants, I put on music, and without longer introductions we started creating. In the meantime I told them about concept of 'flow'. They had 30 minutes, but they asked for more time, so for the good of the workshop I let it. 

In the end, we have put our collages on the wall and talked about them. It was rather loose conversation, than organized discussion because of lack of time, but the participants could feel proud, valued and noticed in this way. 

We cleaned up everything after.

 

RECEIVED FEEDBACK:

Participants were satisfied with this kind of workshop in the end of the day, because it let them to relax and rest a bit in a creative and meaningful way. They were really proud of their creations, and looking at collages we can tell, that they put whole heart in it.

 

WHAT WOULD I CHANGE?

-intensitivity of previous activities- in the end of the day, many people were really tired (but it's out of our control)

-teoritical introduction- beacuse of stressed, there was lack of logical order in what was I saying and it was chaotic.

-Include more research based information about concepts I was talking about.

-time-organization- beacuse of prolongation of creating time, I lacked time for most important thing- discussion and observation.

*On the other hand, collages were intimate, so people maybe wouldn't have wanted to talk about them.

-putting materials after I would tell them what to do, because artistic things on the table distract attention from serious topics.

 

CONCLUSION:

I am proud of the effect which participants have made, and that their liked activity, but my intentions were to connect it more with topic of social inclusion, and how this tooo can be used, but I hope that description of workshops would help future users to include it more.