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ARTEFACT - the highs and the lows, touring the garden

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ARTEFACT - the highs and the lows, touring the garden

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CREATIVE RESPONSE - the spider, it's downfall and it's interesting discovery

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CREATIVE RESPONSE - the spider, it's downfall and it's interesting discovery

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Hold on tightly, overpowering forces will drag u down

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Hold on tightly, overpowering forces will drag u down

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During my experience I saw the sun and I thought of it as being one of the natural elements amongst many in my environment to inspire movement. In my imagination a spider barely hanging on to its web due to the wind suddenly loses its grip on its web due to the glaring sun. The reaction to the sun leads to the spider falling down and scurrying across the ground. During my experience, basking in the sunlight made me spread my arms out and twirl around, it made me feel happy and my movements reflected this feeling. My experience relates to connecting to the ‘other-than-human life forms around’ oneself  and building a connection to our environments, allowing one to embrace and remember their ‘natural self’ (Candell, 2017).

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Hues of green, opening to a brand new world

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Hues of green, opening to a brand new world

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During my experience I let my imagination take me on a ride as I was observing my surroundings. As I looked at all the different things, the sun, the telephone wires, the different plants, even as I heard the wind, my mind was coming up with a story of what all those things could be. In this image, there are numerous different plants, during my experience I saw these plants as more of a hidden place where a community of insects reside, somewhat like a gateway to the insect world. This aspect of my experience relates to drama, particularly make believe and the concept of ‘self regulation’ in terms of being able to ‘engage in self-initiated, purposeful behavior in relatively challenging situations’ (Meyers & Berek, 2014).

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During my experience, I heard the wind passing by as well as the sounds of the trees and the different plants moving with the wind and swaying side by side. Listening to wind during my experience made me think about the power wind has to move things about and in my imagination, along with the sun, the wind also affected the spider's grip on its web and ultimately led to its fall. My experience made me think back to the concept of ‘inner, deep listening and quiet, still awareness’ (Ungunmerr, 1988) and what it means to just focus on listening to your surroundings and becoming aware of what is happening around you. Furthermore, I was reminded of Pauline Oliveros ‘The difference between hearing and listening’ and how focusing  ‘means that one is connected to the whole of the environment’ (TedX Talks, 2015). This made me realise how many times we don't actually comprehend and understand the depth of what we are hearing unless we make an effort to pay attention and listen.

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The creative response that I came up with, which is dramatic storytelling, is about a spider that is very peacefully descending from the web that it had created high up on some telephone wires. Suddenly the spider gets caught up in the wind and finds itself struggling to hold onto its web. While this struggle is ongoing the spider is blinded by the shining sun and loses its grip on its web, which snaps, and suddenly the spider finds itself having fallen to the ground. Now that the spider is on the ground and is moving about, the spider decides to go on a bit of adventure and look around the area. The spider finds itself in front of multiple plants, coming together like a bush almost, and decides that it will go inside and curious to see what it would be like and what it could find. The spider is surprised to find that inside there are multiple different insects, basically a community of insects who have made this place their home or are stopping by much like the spider. Seeing this the spider decides to seek refuge from the wind and the glaring sun and maybe meet and befriend these insects during his stay. Throughout the entirety of my experience I engaged with all three forms of temporal art, sound, movement and drama. The experience was very therapeutic for me, it calmed me down, I simply let my mind wander and really let my imagination flourish. I felt no pressure, everything seemed to fit into place. I also felt as though I was able to appreciate my environment in ways that maybe I had not been able to do before.  I realised through this how important it is for children to be given the opportunities to engage with their natural environments.

Image 1 → Through my experience with this artefact I learnt the importance of movement and dance as a means for one to express themselves as well as make sense of the world around them. I believe that providing children the opportunities to engage in movement and dance is extremely important. ‘Moving and dancing are in fact ways of thinking, in other words – forms of intelligence – that might have nothing to do with words’ (Biddiss, 2015). ‘ Dance expresses feelings, tells stories, demonstrates strength and power, connects people, creates ritual and like art and music, it communicates individual and collective experience in a way that words sometimes can’t’ (Early Childhood Ireland, 2014). In my future practice as an educator, I would try to facilitate both movement and dance in multiple ways such as getting children to create their own movements to learn about their body and how they prefer to move, giving children prompts such as reading a story and having children act it out with their body. I also believe that movement outdoors is just as important, the movement and dance children can create and engage with in nature, through the sounds they hear, the things they see, what they feel etc;.

Image 2 → Through my experience with this artefact I gained a more profound understanding of drama and in particular the dramatics in make believe play, since I personally engaged in this. I came to understand that this type of play is very important for children as those ‘who participate in complex, collaborative, pretend play are better able to regulate their emotions and implement creative problem-solving’ (Wallin, 2019). According to Vygotsky ‘the creation of imaginary scenes using substitute objects aids young children in distinguishing internal ideas from concrete reality’ (Meyers & Berek, 2014). This means that children are able to see beyond what that object is and give the object a new meaning according to their needs or wants, such as turning a stick into a wand. This also relates to the affordance theory that ‘environments and objects within them have values and meanings that are unique to the person perceiving them’ (Play Scotland, n.d.). In my future practice as an educator, I will make sure to provide children the space in which they can experience various forms of drama and have multiple possibilities for imaginary and pretend play. This is because ‘environments where children play have an effect on them and the quality of their play’ (Wallin, 2019) . I will also keep in mind to take children outside as ‘play that occurs in greener, more “natural” spaces can be different, and possibly more complex and developmentally beneficial for young children’ (Wallin, 2019).

Image 3 → Through my experience with this artefact I was able to understand the importance of sounds and music and how impactful both are. I came to realise that listening, intently, makes one aware of their surroundings, you are able to pick up things that you wouldn’t otherwise, they would pass you by. There are so many things that we probably fail to catch in our daily lives, not because we can't hear them but because we don't listen. In my future practice as an educator I will make sure to incorporate ‘inner, deep listening and quiet, still awareness’ (Ungunmerr, 1988) and quiet time. This would give children the opportunity to soak everything in, really appreciate nature and develop spatial awareness when they are outside. Getting children to complete tasks in a quiet manner will allow them to focus solely on that task without getting distracted, it will also provide children with the space and time to process their learnings. I will also incorporate different types of music and sounds in my teaching practice so children can engage in multiple experiences.