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Date published: 1/06/2017
Artsource is pleased to present the 2017 artist-in-residence at the School of Early Learning in West Leederville. The residency offers dynamic experiences for students to observe, participate and enrich their knowledge, confidence and enthusiasm. Following on from the highly successful 2016 residency with Olga Cironis, the residency program aims to enhance the arts environment already in place at the school by providing dynamic arts learning experiences.
Artsource is pleased to present the 2017 artist-in-residence at the School of Early Learning in West Leederville. The residency offers dynamic experiences for students to observe, participate and enrich their knowledge, confidence and enthusiasm. Following on from the highly successful 2016 residency with Olga Cironis, the residency program aims to enhance the arts environment already in place at the school by providing dynamic arts learning experiences.
Sculptor, Bjoern Rainer Adamson, will guide the students through specialised and fun arts activities over the next two months, bringing his substantial knowledge and inspiration to the program.
Bjoern moved to Western Australia from Germany in 2013 and has made a substantial contribution to the local arts sector through his base at the Artsource Fremantle studios. He has worked with children throughout his career, including in Germany as a Montessori woodcarving teacher and in the Munich Artists for Kids programs as an instructor for linoleum carving, printmaking and sewing. In Perth, he has facilitated children’s workshops for REmida and Kidogo Arthouse, among others. His most recent outdoor sculpture, Supernova, was exhibited at the Sculpture at Bathers event in March and made an impression on a large number of visitors. He is excited about this opportunity to work within the School of Early Learning’s creative world.
“Being at the School of Early Learning is particularly interesting for me, because I get to share the things that were magical to me as a child; like playing with clay – a medium that can be simply seen as dirt, but is so flexible! When it is fired in the kiln it then takes on a particular colour and becomes hard so it can be painted or glazed. At such a young age children do not yet know why these magical changes happen, so it’s interesting for me to see their observations and their joy in discovering something for the first time,” says Bjoern.
“Every time I work with children I find out things that I can use for my own practice. It’s inspiring to watch how they deal with technical issues and to hear what kind of questions they have because they are all different to the questions I have about the world. As I learn with them, I do not see myself as a teacher; I see my work with them as a collaboration.”
It is the potential actions and reactions of a marble run which first captured the children’s interest, with Bjoern guiding them into an ongoing project with design and planning elements, and the testing out of a variety of scenarios and tools. Made from plastic pipes, the structure’s initial shape was formed from the children’s questioning about its function: Can it send messages?, What if something was dropped in that didn’t fit?, How can the run be extended?, Is a saw or scissors needed to cut the pipe to length?, What do the marbles experience in the run?, What does being in a tunnel feel like?
Over the course of the residency, these questions and more are explored while creating the three-dimensional marble run from interwoven “spaghetti” pipes into a form lead by the children. Challenges such as dropping the marble from a height into a funnel, creating multiple exit and entry points and even discussing ideas and stories about the marble’s emotional experience on its journey give the children endless scope to process and develop their own playful artwork.
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