Artasia with Niwasa at the McQuesten Urban Farm

This was my first art session with the group at Niwasa. The idea for their programming was to use the Artasia 2025 themes but customize each week to be more in line with the values of Niwasa. My description for that week was as follows:

ARTASIA INSPO: WEEK 1: BODY — The Expressive, Knowing Body
Children explore how their bodies express ideas and emotions. Activities focus on self-awareness and physical expression.

NIWASA: Week 1 of 5

This week we explore how our bodies can express ideas and emotions. We’ll be using chalk and the earth to create ephemeral art works that will fade away over time.

Activity description:

Using coloured chalk and charcoal capture body shadows and body outlines onto asphalt. How do you feel? Can you express that with your Shadow or a body pose? Are there certain patterns or shapes you can add to these outlines to further express these feelings? Can you create a story with your tracings?

This piece will be ephemeral and will wash away with the rain.

Materials:

• Coloured chalk
• Charcoal

Alternative activity:

Use Kraft paper as a substrate and trace with chalk, charcoal and/or washable markers. 

Materials:

• Kraft paper
• Charcoal (made with Loralei Jamieson and Karyn Callaghan at the Piazza Ora Workshop)
• Natural materials (from site)

This art session reminded me of how creative children are and how they possess a rich imagination, especially for storytelling. 

The spark of imagination was ignited with children when they quickly realized how easily they could venture into the realm of imagination and not stay within the confines of our reality.

Children traced friends or had their own bodies traced. Their forms were then transformed into creatures such as dinosaurs, birds, monsters or were recreated into family members.

A foot was now a flower petal and then a garden monster. The accidental movement of an arm was the spontaneous creation of a duck. 

The secondary use of charcoal (man made from Wild Grape vine and fire charcoal) onto Kraft paper was also a fun explorative activity. I explained to the children about how the charcoal was created and they were very eager to use it. I had brought in one of the three tins Loralei, Karyn and I had used to make the charcoal. They quickly began drawing with it and even saturating their hands/feet to make prints across the paper.

These moments mattered because they were a powerful reminder of how allowing children to explore a material and an idea could lead to bigger and more profound ways of learning. Ways that are more organic. 

It questioned my approach to activity prompts and to practice staying quiet, opening up space for children to discover more on their own as opposed to me leading them to a conclusion. 

This activity and the moments during it further revealed to me how vast a child’s imagination and the ability to create are important factors for a child’s development. 

Their curiosity to further explore a subject was fuelled by their curiosity and enjoyment level.

– Zorica Silverthorne