Page 15 - Teaching Innovation for the 21st Century

Teaching Innovation for the 21st Century | Showcasing UJ Teaching and Learning 2021
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Art and creativity in lockdown – skills books
Art Therapy honours
With TIF funding, the art therapy honours students engaged in a social action learning programme, and created a repository of new materials and resources that are relevant, not only for the South African context, but will also have value internationally. They created
two manuals on artmaking skills (see appendix 1 and 2). The first – compiled by the first cohort of art therapy students – was a poignant and innovative response to the South African lockdown in 2020. These resources were shared with teachers, guardians, parents and community centre leaders to support creative activities for children using found and accessible materials in the home. The 2020 Covid-19 lockdown was particularly devastating for many children who could not access the community centres where they usually find support, stimulation and nourishment, building their confidence, self-worth and hope. The resource books and videos are designed for children who do not have the privilege or access to learn ‘online’, to enable them to play and enjoy their own creativity, which are sources for their resilience. We hope to build on them each year.
The nine art therapy honours students of 2021 conducted their community placements as hybrid engagements, both in person and virtually, with our community partners at the Alex Arts Academy in Alexandra township, the Trevor Huddleston Centre in Sophiatown and Lefika La Phodiso in Hillbrow. Instead of offering only once-off ‘in person’ interventions, the students were able to provide the community centres and children with access to ongoing and sustainable artmaking activities. Many of these children live in homes that lack art materials and play, and where the scarcity of food and water takes precedence. Many were at risk of losing hope. Their playful spirits were diminished as they were locked indoors without creative stimulation. Their parents or guardians had no experience of home schooling, and most lacked skills in the creative arts.
The students reached out through WhatsApp and social media platforms to distribute short videos with simple ‘how to’ demonstrations. Lefika La Phodiso, the art therapy community partner, became a repository for food parcels and stationery supplies to assist inner-city children during lockdown. With assistance from the art therapy students, Lefika established a YouTube platform for art-making activities and resources developed during and beyond the art therapy module.2
The literature on the role of arts in social transformation is evidenced in community-engaged learning projects. I argue that social transformation happens when one can imagine other possibilities and one has the capacity to aspire for a more hopeful future (Berman 2017). The examples of these student-inspired projects support the role that artists and artmaking play in responding, restoring and re-enlivening hope and creative energy.
Jean Paul Lederach (2005) refers to art as a route into a collective imaginative domain that generates constructive processes. It can ‘invoke, set free, and sustain innovative responses to the roots of violence while rising above it’ (Lederach 2005: 172). Through this lens, we
Project
2 Lefika La Phodiso YouTube channel
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