Children from Poland and India Participated Together in Common Room Workshops

a1.jpg, small, Common Room workshops, photo: ARTmosphere Foundation, Children from Poland and India Participated Together in Common Room Workshops

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On 23rd April 2016, children from Poland and India participated in online art workshops held as part of the Common Room project, working together on a textile design insipired by the culture of both countries. The pattern they created, titled Botany India – Poland, will be presented in May at the opening of the Kids Love Design festival in Szczecin.

Common Room full of sounds and images

During the online workshops, conducted live via instant messengers, children from two cities: Szczecin in Poland and Tiruvannamalai in India, had a chance to get to know each other, as well as to understand each other's needs and cultures they come from. First part of the meeting was dominated by integration activities, such as drawing each other's portraits. The children remained in constant interaction. Not only they presented their works, but they also willingly talked about themselves.

The children were accompanied by adult guardians. On the Polish side the guardians were Beata Kuracińska, one of the curators of the Common Room project, and Michał Jurys, artist and designer working with different forms of printing. In India, the children were assisted by Ramu Aravindan, designer and photographer, and Sreeja Nambiar, copywriter.

Zdjęcie prac powstałych podczas warsztatów Common Room, fot. Fundacja ARTmosphere — Works created by children during the Common Room workshops, photo: ARTmosphere Foundation

Cyanotype and screen printing on fabric

Botany India – Poland is a design based on floral motifs. Children used leaves, flowers and other natural objects found in their immediate environment. Later they worked with various techniques, so that the design could be transferred to fabric, in India using the cyanotype, in Poland – screen printing.

Additionally, the children who participated in workshops in Szczecin, learned the basics of hand colouring of black-and-white photos with ink.

Common Room Workshops 2016 – Image Gallery

Embeded gallery style

display gallery as slider

Continuation of the project – exhibition of fabric pattern

The next event held as part of the Common Room project was an exhibition under the same name accompanying the Kids Love Design festival. The opening of the festival and the exhibition took place in May in Szczecin's TRAFO Center For Contemporary Art. The exhibition was on display until 26th May.

The exhibition, presenting the effects of the workshops, was accompanied by further actions taking place on the site. Children participating in them created a new pattern which was then reproduced on another fabric. They had paper, crayons, stamps etc. on their disposal.

The exhibition was also supplemented by materials documenting the the project, including a video recording of the workshops and photos of the various stages of the process of creating the design.

On 21st May a fashion show closely related to the theme of this year's festival – ethical fashion – was held.

The Common Room project has been developed since 2013 in Szczecin, Poland. Previous editions of the project were carried out in cities located on different continents: Berlin, Jerusalem, Rivera, Santana do Livramento, San Diego and Tijuana.

Common Room from Culture.pl on Vimeo.

Curators of the project: Beata Kuracińska and Justyna Werbel
Initiator of the project is the ARTmosphere Foundation.
The project is carried out in cooperation with Culture.pl and the Polish Institute in Delhi.
Partners of the Common Room 2016 project: Ekalokam Trust for Photography, Norblack Norwhite, Culture.pl

More information about the project available at: www.commonroom-project.com

Source: press materials, written by EP, translated by AW, 12 May 2016.

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