By Becky Blue, Western Communications
With demands for online educational resources at an all-time high, organizers of a new interactive project see the time as right to introduce Ontario students to London’s art treasures.
Discover London Art, a collaborative effort between Faculty of Information and Media Studies instructor Juan Bello and Museum London, offers stories and activities about three initial subjects: Realist Paul Peel; London Regionalist Greg Curnoe’s signature work Car; and trailblazing female artists. The project is backed by the Canada Council for the Arts-Digital Strategy Fund.
Organizers say the project takes kids behind the work and provides a look at artists as people.
“When kids go to the museum and see the work of Paul Peel, Greg Curnoe or Florence Carlyle, they might not be aware of how these people discovered their talents and the paths they followed in order to become professional artists,” said Bello, who directed the project.
“We are presenting the museum collection from a narrative perspective: How did these artists foster their creativity? How did they make the decisions they made? What were the things and places they loved? How did their life circumstances present them with opportunities and obstacles? How did the historical context shape their careers?”
Discover London Art rolled out its materials as a pilot project in late 2019. With encouraging early feedback, Museum London decided to distribute the content more broadly when the COVID-19 crisis began.
The program aligns with the Ontario Visual Arts curriculum, Bello said. Each story contains a short video, followed by a series of activities based on its content.
For example, the Paul Peel entry offers a seven-minute video, a digital gallery of his work, a lesson on the artistic elements of line and emphasis, and the chance to create your own artwork. Students can discover that Peel was a London-born artist who achieved international acclaim, and who often used London scenery and the Thames River in his work.
“There is not a unique template,” said Bello of the ways in which these artists became who they were. “So, the idea of a storytelling approach is to encourage kids to understand that there is not one way to be an artist; everyone finds or creates their own path.”
While timely and needed, the project intends to be a long-term enterprise.
Bello hopes to facilitate children’s first encounters with local art and initiate long-lasting cultural experience that contribute to their development as “engaged citizens and mindful human beings.”
He continued, “Our hope is to continue developing new stories, and to enhance the interactive online components. The next stage includes working on Indigenous artists and exploring regional art from a multicultural perspective. We believe in the potential of art to spark children’s curiosity and to foster meaningful interactions.”