Department of Cultural Affairs

Photo by LRM
Children’s art works in the exhibition.

By Dory Chung
 
Monga Longshan Culture & Creative B2 worked with Soho Children’s Art Museum in Taipei to hold the exhibition “Art in the everyday”. Visitors could experience magical fun from 11:00 am to 7:00 pm every day except Monday.
 
The exhibition is meant to bring people together in an interactive environment and thus learn more about art. People can play games and have their pictures taken beside winning art works by children.
 

Photo by LRM
Paintings by students of Longshan Elementary school
 

This is a joint project of the Taipei City Government’s Department of Cultural Affairs and the Department of Education. An education that enlightens is important because the learner discovers diverse ways for self-improvement. Visitors to “Art in the everyday” will experience this in the four sections of the exhibition.
 
A colorful painting of a brick wall stands at the entrance to the exhibition. All 600 pieces of brick paintings were done by primary school students. They reflect the attempts of their creators to draw out traditional styles from their child-like art. People can move the pieces around like jigsaw puzzles and create their own art.
 

Photo by LRM
A student shares what she has learned from art class.  
 

Behind the wall are two rooms, one full of black and white crisscrossing bars that make a visitor feel like in a maze of zebra stripes. The other room has walls of rough textured materials that seem to dance with a warm color light. The two rooms were meant to express the contrast between “sense and sensibility” enabling visitors to learn that apparent divergence is one of the principles of art.
 

Photo by LRM
Winners of an art competition
 

The Sohoart Education Center has sent a team to take charge of the Art Foundation Project initiated by the Taipei City Government’s Department of Cultural Affairs. The team selected 200 artworks by students of Longshan Elementary School and put them on display at the Monga Longshan Culture & Creative B2 and at the MRT Zhongshan Station Art Gallery.

The Taipei Art Foundation Project has been going on for three years. It promotes having children actually doing artistic creations instead of having them learn art through textbooks.
 
Last year, this experimental art teaching at the Longshan Elementary School had a group of students without previous exposure to art education learn the basic mixing techniques to create a myriad of colors. They learned how to distinguish between cold and warm contrast, the techniques of smudge, patchwork, and sculpting models. After just one year, the students can now make both 2 and 3 dimensional works of art. When you see their works, you won’t believe they were created by children.