Making the most of Mona
THE combination of Mona and the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery are extraordinarily rich opportunities for children to experience art in both a traditional and new way.
Both are unique for educational advancement in the visual arts.
While TMAG has a substantial collection of colonial art, together with modern representations, the recent Winnie the Pooh and Friends exhibition was an outstanding presentation of the much loved children’s book character.
To see original drawings presented rich opportunities for the childhood favourite to be explored in a variety of ways, narrative, through illustrations and imaginatively.
Children could readily create stories around the paintings and drawings of their own. The same applies in TMAG’s collection broadly where responding to art can be extended in this way.
The Mona experience is something else entirely. While the collection is one thing, it is the ideas behind it that are highly suitable for children.
The use of technology is front and centre at Mona. This is clear from the induction with the handheld device that can be used in Mona like a mobile phone in a way.
The visual world children inhabit is well documented and there is extensive research to support the reality that children are learning increasing through technology.
This is where Mona is a leader but curiously not through an overuse of screen imagery.
The Museum of Everything exhibition, which runs until April next year, presents a rich opportunity for individual exploration of ideas and for children.
This is a liberating experience. The exhibition is a collection of drawings and art, things, and various pieces that says art is what you decide it to be, not what one is instructed to believe.
It is an ideal starting point for schools to begin their own “museum of everything” where children could make art to display. This is one of Mona’s great strengths, showing what is possible.
Children will find this exhibition exceptionally appealing and engaging as the variety of drawings and paintings are extensive and are the kind of art that many children will believe that they can replicate.
This sends a very clear message that art is possible. It also legitimises the efforts of art that may not be benchmarked against some arbitrary standard.
The benefits of this to creative expression in the classroom are considerable.
The construction of visual diaries of a child’s experiences of school through drawings, paints and any other visual form may become collectively a museum of a school.
Thematically, this could be transferred to such things as a museum or gallery of sport, pastimes, families, recreation, or anything.
The essential aspect is to encourage children to be visual and then have opportunity to explain why they may have chosen a particular approach.
But a gallery is for exhibiting so to display work and have parents come to see what their children have produced us a powerful endorsement for the work of the children.
This is not to say that parents and local communities could not be directly involved in the creation of art.
What Mona also does exceptionally well is challenge ideas. Some of the exhibits are exploratory installations where the physical meets the visual.
The educational benefit of this is clear. Children could articulate their opinions and should they make similar art, be ready to articulate their decisions and present the ideas behind the pieces.
Beyond this, children could be asked to say what should and what should not be included in art galleries and why.
These are the kinds of questions that encourage children to participate in the visual arts in a way that Mona promotes. It is art which causes a reaction and that is one of its many strengths.
The benefits of art education and art consumerism are huge. Leaving aside the central issue of exploring creativity, the significant parallel benefits for children are that Mona can prompt confidence and ultimately promote art in the Tasmanian community.
In this everyone benefits. Christopher Bantick is a teacher and writer.