Review article
Encouraging visual art creativity and imagination of children in communication with cultural heritage
Dunja Pivac
orcid.org/0000-0002-1362-3640
; Arts Academy of the University of Split, Split, Croatia
Abstract
This work emphasises the undeniable need of children to communicate with the environment. One of the communication forms necessary for children is the visual art expression as well, which they spontaneously, nonverbally use from an early age. As part of the mandatory elementary school, the school subject Visual Arts Education develops visual art speech of children through tasks contained in teaching topics specified by the curriculum. We may ask ourselves, how students at the age of eleven or twelve should get introduced to the cultural heritage which is often an integral part of their environment thereby providing them a visual dialogue? As a starting point for the achievement of the above-mentioned dialogue during lessons of Visual Arts Education, students have used some selected photographs of the cultural heritage. For them, the photography as a picture of reality had precedence over a reality item or object because they were able to make interventions in the image of heritage. However, they could even make further modifications, additions or interpretations if they wished to. In this way, students have ceased to be just passive observers of cultural heritage.
Indeed, they have become its active co-creators. In such a way, accomplished visual art communication with cultural heritage has inspired the visual art creativity and imagination of children. Moreover, it has managed to oppose them to the uniform and patterned visual communication to which children as leading users of mass and new media are being exposed these days.
Keywords
photography; cultural heritage; visual art dialogue
Hrčak ID:
160226
URI
Publication date:
11.5.2016.
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