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Ice-breaking, Group-building
& Communication
through visual arts related activities  


IF I WERE AN OBJECT...

Objectives

 

1. Overcome shyness
2. Favor self narration
3. Facilitate the active listenning
4. Stimulate abstraction and symbolization
5. Learning new words in case of people with foreign background

 

Time frame

3 minutes per participant. Ex: 30 minutes for 10 people

Material needed

Cards, badge holders, pins
Home and Furniture magazines
Scissors, glue, black markers

Tips

Introducing yourself or saying something about you can sometimes be embarrassing, especially for the most reserved people or in a group of people who are getting to know each other for the first time. This activity allows you to overcome this embarrassment by creating a friendly and light atmosphere and by facilitating the story-telling of your personal sphere without feeling discovered or judged. Thinking about yourself as an object helps you objectifying the topic you want to talk about using the same instrument available for all participants: the metaphor.

You can try out alternative ways to make people talk about themselves. Images of everyday objects are perfect for this purpose not only because they give you the freedom to tell anything about yourselves that you want to and hide what you don‘t want to tell, but also because it introduces you into the practice of the symbolical use of images.

1. Provide the participants with Home and Furniture magazines, scissors, glue, a marker and a card with a pin (or a badge holder).

2. Ask the participants to leaf through the magazine cutting out an object related to himself/herself or to an aspect of his/her life or personality that he/she wants to tell something about.
 

3. Ask each participant to glue the cutout on the card and to write his/her own name. Alternatively, the name can also be written by cutting out letters from the magazine and gluing them.

4. Go on with the presentations of each participant by sharing the object and explaining why he/she has chosen it.

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