Niamh Porter
Units of Learning
Memento: Autobiographical coil pots inspired by Grayson Perry
Inspired by the ceramic vessels of Grayson Perry, students will create traditional coil pots and decorate the surface with an autobiographical narrative. Combining line drawing, self portraits, medulas, and sgraffito motifs from a significant memory, students will be encouraged to reveal aspects of themselves, creating a vessel that holds a memory.
Utopian/dystopian imaginary composition inspired by The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch and other surrealist works.
Using Hieronymus Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights as an example of fantastical, absurd, inventive excellence, students will be asked to develop a highly imaginative composition with a utopian or dystopian narrative.
The Garden of Earthly Delights first presents us with an idealised landscape with familiar and unfamiliar creatures, then a frenzied middle panel packed with confusing and chaotic happenings, and finally a hellscape with subjects in various degrees of torment. While stories from Christianity are illustrated, in this project, we will view the work from a secular perspective and focus on the imaginative masterpiece that it is. Thanks to the resources at the Hunt Museum, students will be fully immersed in three-dimensional, virtual reality, engaging with the artwork in new ways.
Collaborative Zines
Through rigorous brainstorming sessions, hands-on cutting, pasting, tearing, more considered planning, designing, and sharing; students will work collaboratively to identify and navigate tumultuous subject matter. This project aims to promote autonomy, using zines to engage with people around us and take ownership of the student voice.
Aimed at a group of students who haven't necessarily studied art in the Junior Cycle, text-based work (short stories, poetry, appropriated text) will be combined with montage to create powerful, interdisciplinary means of communication. As we move from individual works into the group work, students will collectively curate and design final work with a clear narrative. The role of the teacher is facilitator who presents tools and references that supports collaboration, while the content, subject matter, visual aspects of the work is determined by the students.
Responding to the historical artifact through ceramics
When we look to history, it is an opportunity to learn how we have arrived in the present. We develop an appreciation of different cultures, ways of living, and influential events from other times and places. It widens our awareness of the world around us, furthering our understanding and empathy for others. This project examines how we contextualise and make meaning of what is happening in the world by looking at our history. We will be doing this by researching a museum object in detail and making connections to our own lives and interests. Through fashion and jewellery, household objects, tools, and religious artifacts we can investigate the impact they have on the value of objects today.