Our Planet

Text : Tomoko Nagao

With the opening of the new building, we created a Material Shelf in Akebi class. This was created from the perception of Yamanoko as an art space. We wanted children to explore their interests, create new ideas, and the Material Shelf is the first step embodying that very idea.

On the shelf, there are paper materials, wires, plastic materials, solid paints, crayons, wood glue. The theme is “moving”. These materials were taken from the massive amount of packing materials when the moving took place. This goes in line with the thinking called “creative use”. It usually means when “garbage” turns into materials and/or ingredients to interact with. Packing materials are “things that wraps, or ties” no longer and cushioning materials start to pronounce their semi-transparency, and cable ties transforms into a connecting material.

 

Our intention is not for children to create something “good”. We strongly wish that children encounter. interact and explore materials. Encountering and exploring materials makes one notice their unique characteristics. They start to diversify their thinking, as they start to notice each material is unique and different so they start react differently according to the material they are interacting with. Art space, or an aterlier, is thought as a place where creative unique processes happen, which is true for this case, however we want to focus more on one’s RE-action as opposed to their action. We look forward their reactions when they notice the differences in the materials.

 

Their reactions when interacting with materials differ everyday. We believe these are their archives of their changes and expression. This is also thought to be as a preparation for what is to come. So the first month was dedicated to first interacting with the materials and creating a reciprocal relationship with them.

 

*Creative use was a thought process proposed by Hiroko Ootsuki which focuses on observing “garbage”, materials that are going to be thrown out, and with creativity and imagination, the materials get regenerated and recirculated. It also utilizes the materials that are already around us.