Blue Bird
Philosophizing and creativity
The film Blue Bird was the focus of STORMOPKOMST 2012 and was also the occasion for a large project on philosophizing and creativity.
Blue Bird is a film by Gust Van den Berghe. Van den Berghe went to Togo to shoot his version of L'Oiseau bleu. This fairy tale by Nobel Prize winner Maurice Maeterlinck follows two children in their search for happiness.
Trajectories
Eleven students from the 2nd year Teacher Education - Art Subjects Project supervised several workshops. In each group, the children philosophized and worked on one of Blue Bird's themes. The workshops took place in the schools De Toverboom (Geel) and De Mast (Retie), at Grabbelpas (Turnhout) and at the Festival van de Creativiteit (Turnhout). The elementary school classes involved were also given a pre- or post-screening talk to accompany the film.
At the Stedelijke Academie voor Schone Kunsten (Turnhout), six primary school classes worked on a Blue Bird theme under the guidance of their teacher.
In order to prepare the students for this task, STORMOPKOMST organized, together with some teachers of Thomas More Turnhout, two training days: one on philosophizing with children (in collaboration with Zeno) and one on music education (in collaboration with Kunst in Zicht) and on the film Blue Bird (in collaboration with Mooov). The SASK teachers received an extensive briefing, an inspiration folder and feedback on their proposals.
...eavesdropping
Question & Answer
Q: Can you read yet?
A: I can read in my head.
When I first didn't know an answer, I was about five years old.
Q: How does the body work?
A: Your arm sends text messages to your brain and back.
Q: Where do you go when you die?
A: Under the ground.
Q: Is there anywhere else you can go?....
A: Yes, above ground. ...but then you're in a jar.
At the festival
All 291 works made by the children, were presented in an exhibition during the festival. The space travelers gave shape to this blue world. In addition to the children's works, there were also original drawings from the book The Blue Bird by illustrator Carll Cneut, several films inspired by Blue Bird, and Frederik Meulyzer made some soundscapes based on scenes from the film specifically for STORMOPKOMST.
During the festival, Gust Van den Berghe's film Blue Bird was of course shown and in addition to the exhibition there were also the following links:
- Viewersbox workshop by Jekino
- Drawing workshop with Carll Cneut
- Blue Breakfast
- Réunion, a musical chess game with excerpts from an audio story by the NTGent.
Credits
In collaboration with: Thomas More, Mooov, de Warande, Kunst in Zicht, ZENO, SASK, Utopolis.
Click here for full credits on the art education project and exhibition.
