A GLOBAL CANVAS

A thousand 10- to 12-year-old schoolchildren in Denmark, St Petersburg, Rio de Janeiro and Cape Town have, over the past few months, collaborated with local and international artists and teachers on creating architectural models, music, drama and art works depicting their hopes for sustainable development and their dreams of the future.

Themed “Reimagining our hoods”, the Ciclo Arts Education Project has seen teachers and students share ideas in virtual brainstorming sessions, and their efforts culminated in a series of performances and exhibitions held during Unesco’s Arts Education Week towards the end of May.

Whereas pupils at Parkfields Primary in Cape Town were engaged in creating their schoolyard mural, children at Rio’s Nucleo de Artes Culture Centre were occupied with creating a play about the pollution of the local Guanabara Bay. In Copenhagen, students at Peder Lykke School worked with a local designer and architect on devising sustainable solutions for a nearby beach, while pupils at two schools in Ishøj, south of Copenhagen, created a musical dance performance to share their interpretation of a future sustainable community. And in St Petersburg students used art and puppetry to convey the impact of nature’s seasonal cycles on their young lives.

Ciclo’s goals – which are founded on Unesco’s objectives for arts education in schools – focus primarily on addressing global social and cultural challenges through art. The project is intended to provide children with new perspectives on the possibility of creating a sustainable future together. • cicloarts.net