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


NEWSPAPER & BODY SCULPTURES

Objectives

 

1. Giving space for free creation
2. Using of the whole body experimenting movement and forms
3. Understanding forms and proportions
4. Playing with details

5. Abstraction and imagination skills

Time frame

10 minutes depending on the number of participants

Material needed

A4 or A3 leafs of papers or recycled newspaper

1. Each participant gets a piece of paper and individually makes a shape out of it.

 

One can fold, smash, tear the paper, etc., but can use only its hands to shape it.

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A simple and short creative exercise with limited possibilities such as creating a sculpture of newspaper only by using your hands can be a very instructive exercise before you get into a more complex creative activity. You will immediately gain consciousness about the difference between what you have imagined and what materials, having their own rules, allow you to do. You will learn too that abstraction and imagination are also part of the job when dealing with visuality.

2. Everyone puts down its sculpture in a big circle (on chairs, tables or on the ground). The participants walk around and observe the creations of the others.

3. After a few minutes, everyone chooses one, takes the shape of the statue with a body part. First, freeze in your position, then take a moment to observe others. After a few seconds, leave the position and look for another statue to do the same again. Look for a third statue and repeat. Next, when you walk around, create pairs by one statue and recreate the form of the statue together.

 

You can change again and vary the activity asking to two people to stand next the same sculpture and to recreate it together with their both bodies.

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4.  As a closure, create in the middle of the circle an installation made of all the paper sculptures. One by one, everyone puts their creations somewhere where he/she feels it belongs to. Ask the group at the end: what would be the title of the collective installation? 


5. It can end with a short debriefing on the activity. For example, you can ask the participants how was the creation; Did they have a clear image about the form they shaped at the beginning or were they more driven by the process; How difficult or easy was the movement and the body sculpture part, etc.

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