Monday 3 February 2014

Out of the Mouth of Babes

As part of our BestB4 Residency at the Chinese Cultural Centre Museum (Vancouver) during the run of the  exhibition. Tree: Literal and Figurative, Pauline Doyle, Alison Keenan and Phyllis Schwartz welcomed students from Britannia Secondary School and Lord Strathcona Elementary School into the gallery and museum classrooms. Student from both schools were quickly engaged with the art work in the gallery and responded with perceptive and knowledgeable observations.

When standing in front of Anna Ruth's inverted graphite drawings of trees, they speculated on why the tree was installed with roots at the top of the drawing and leaves on the ground: perhaps forests were being destroyed or the artists wanted us to take a more careful look at the entire tree. Looking at Edward Peck's three large scale  photographs, their comments indicated that they had an instant understanding of the raw industries that make up the economy of British Columbia; they quickly made the connections between raw materials being converted into building materials, pulp and paper.

Pauline Doyle leads a discussion about Edward Peck's photographs

Students discussing Anna Ruth's inverted tree drawings