Nihalani (http://www.streetartbio.com/aakash-nihalani) takes advantage of the
non-permanent nature of tape, and creates street artworks that are ephemeral, yet engaging and interactive that make a lasting impact on how we view and interact with space. Is it something that can be manipulated? And if so, what are the different means of creating that dialogue and facilitate an on-going conversation? The idea of an urban space that is multi-layered, multi-faceted, and multi-functional that is able to host these conversations is something that can be further inquired into for the learners.
When I hosted this workshop it ran for 90 minutes. I had about 30 students signed up and they were introduced to the concept and effect of using tape in art. I wanted the workshop to be practical as I only had one session with them, so I focussed on the interactive aspect of Nihalani's work. The videos in the Sway presentation above are excellent as inspirations. It took about 20 minutes to go through the presentation and discussions with the learners art terms such as site-specific installation, in-situ, and sculpture, then the students are broken into groups of 3-4 to generate ideas for their own quick Tape Art experiments.
Students were asked to create one or more pieces of tape art installations that manipulate the site in some ways. They needed to start with an on-site survey by taking photographs of a location at school and use ExplainEverything on their iPad to annotate their thinking and planning. Then they need to use the isometric papers provided and show their planning on paper. A good starting point would be to look up '3D geometric shapes' and learn to copy or translate them onto the isometric paper.
[A practice piece of using isometric paper to draw a series of three-dimensional objects.]
[In a group of three, one team created this piece using the white 3M vinyl tape, 20mm]
Creating the installation is only half of the artwork, interacting with it and creating new meaning activate the installation and the conversation. Part of the success criteria was that the learners need to take photographs or make a stop-motion movie showing how space is manipulated, and how that it changed our perception of space.
[Learner's take on being part of the artwork]
It was a quick yet engaging workshop, with high student success. Feel free to use the resources provided in this post
Love it. Do it!