Education through art and education – book presentation and exhibition

2ND  JULY > 11 A.M I PALÁCIO NACIONAL DE MAFRA 

The project Education through Art and Heritage is a pioneer project in the area of monuments which consists in the development of Art Teaching through Painting, Drama and Encounters with History workshops. It is directed at children from 4 to 12 years old with the purpose of joining Education through Art with the discovery of our Heritage and History. This project works in collaboration with the Office of Technical and Scientific Support of Monuments and has as an objective to educate and stimulate creativity through observing and living the Heritage.

The project works with groups of children which develop a continuous learning through an academic year, applying and developing it. We pinpoint the relation established between the families and the institution, exalting a situation of sharing where the living and experiencing of the various forms of artistic communication becomes empowered.

The project also welcomes children with special educative needs with full interest on providing the development of competences, capacities and values in a way to serve the interests and needs of these children, so it can share care, responsibilities and knowledge in all their process of evolution with the purpose of organizing a true inclusion.

Several strategies for the development of creativity are given to children, in order to expand their artistic education. Developing heritage sensitivity they also naturally develop the capability to observe.

Regarding that along the natural progression of learning, through reflection and introspection, it is suggested a new way of “listening” and “watching” these students uncover the “mystery of understanding” of the old stones that dictate history in each Monument.

Students have the freedom to imagine and explore through knowledge the history and the feats of our ancestors.

In these workshops of art teaching children learn to find, through beauty and emotion, a way to express themselves in the search for an existence compatible with the fantasy that exists inside us. They find their inspiration in an historical iconography, with the purpose of creating, through a “forest of symbols” an oral and written communication which results in the construction of texts and artworks that dictate history.

The study of general history is implicit with the history of Painting. For the children to develop their works they need the knowledge of the study of History, through the Image and the Word, regarding Aesthetics, Ethics and Poetry. These children that “draw history” discover and explore knowledge and feelings through the creation of their works.

The purpose of this work is, at the end of each academic year, to develop a project, based on the Portuguese History, elaborating and publishing a children’s book, where creativity and imagination join the visual arts and the theater through stories and illustrations.

In the scope of the aforementioned project wide rooms are provided for its development. In another way, the children are also allowed to explore the geographic extension of the monument using the many spaces and corners that inspire their works  and serve as study materials.

This project was born in 2012 at the Convent of Christ, a place of History, where some of the most important representations of Portuguese ancient architectural styles can be found.

In the academic year of 2014/2015 the project travelled to the National Pantheon, where it started a courageous and attractive course of discovery and revelation of History, exalting through color and shape the first baroque church in Portugal which rapidly transformed, for the younger ones, into the “house” of fascinating figures, important personalities of our history and culture.

The aforementioned project proceeded to the discovery of the National Palace-Convent of Mafra.

The little artists were eager to “know” the court architecture of King John V.  The Palace was presented to them as a “festive scenery”, central element of the baroque life, which attracts in an almost magical way the interest of children on this fascinating King, that enchanted the small ones as can be verified through the paintings, drawings and stories produced in the academic year of 2015/2016 in the art studio of the Campo Santo Chapel.

Keywords: Education, Art; Heritage; Painting; Poetry; Drama; Theater; Be; Exist; Create.

Olga Sotto
Diretora do Projeto Educação pela Arte e Património
Palácio Nacional de Mafra