Back in Class

Once you are back in the classroom, you can follow up your visit to the museum with any number of activities:

Writing exercise: prose, poetry

The students each choose their favourite work and write a short prose piece or poem. Their compositions could then be posted on the school’s website.

Classroom museum

Create an exhibition space in the classroom or any other part of the school, using objects chosen and brought in by your students.

Various team projects are possible

You could research a theme, an artist, an artistic period, etc.

You could develop the notion of interdisciplinarity by placing an artist or work in context.

For example, a map-reading exercise could involve locating the different cities where Paul-Émile Borduas lived, then producing a time line showing various periods in his life.

To determine the students’ perceptions of contemporary art, you could raise more philosophical questions:

• Why do we look at a work of art?
• What purpose does art serve?
• What does it mean to say: it’s beautiful, it’s ugly?

Look at reproductions of other works and wonder what the differences would be if you were actually in front of them.

It can be interesting to talk about the differences between an image and the actual object which, especially in contemporary art, calls for a physical experience. In an installation, for example, there is no single, ideal viewpoint; the viewer must move physically “inside” the work.