Animation workshop
Text: Roosa Pyykkönen, University of Lapland
Summary
In the animation workshop, the pupils did their own winter-themed stop-motion animations using different techniques like using objects, movement and drawing. Materials were found around the school, like art and craft materials, but also everyday odjects and snow and nature outside. The first half of the workshop was aimed at learning about animation and being inspired by winter around us. Then it was time for planning and doing the animation itself. The pupils’ animations turned out great, and with various different approaches and ideas about winter. Challenges came with the -28-degree weather, and many couldn´t film outside in nature. Therefore, different ways of depicting the winter theme had to be invented.
Background
In this land-based art education project, pupils in Utsjoki’s local schools joined in different snow and winter-themed workshops. The project aimed to develop Arctic art education through workshops and explore and support schoolchildren’s relationship with nature and local culture through contemporary art. The Land is seen as a reciprocal teacher in the communal Land-based learning method. Media pedagogy based on digitalisation played an important role in the project, too. During the time at Utsjoki, there were four different winter-themed art workshops, and in collaboration, a group of students from the University of Lapland did snow sculpting.
The theme of the workshops was snow and winter, which are an essential part of the area and people’s lives at Utsjoki. The background of the implementation of the project was land-based learning, Utsjoki as a place, Sámi culture, New Genre Art education and Arctic contemporary art, curriculum and local beliefs.
The project implemented four snow-themed art workshops for the school’s pupils, from pre-school to upper secondary school students. The school’s pupils participated in the initial brainstorming of the workshops. The topics of the workshops were:
- Media
- Animations
- House mark
- Stories about snow
Tiina Männistö, Anselmi Petäjäaho and Roosa Pyykkönen
University of Lapland, Finland