Photography by Zhang Ying, Today Art Museum

Our Diary of Growth—Three Years’ Achievements of Art Exhibition of Transient Children

Our Diary of Growth – Art Exhibition of Transient Childrenwas opened on 3F, Hall 1, Today Art Museum on 19 May, 2012. This exhibition was to show the works of students from their 3 years’ study in “Art Education Program for Transient Children”, a long-term project co-sponsored by Today Art Museum & JPMorgan. Students from two New Citizen Schools sang Hidden Wings & Sing out Loud in ensemble at the opening ceremony. They also placed paper planes carrying their dreams in the exhibiting space with Mr. Weiyang Xu, Head of Capital & Securities Services (China), JPMorgan, Miss Lihua Liang, Director of Chinese Corporate Communication & Market Promotion, JPMorgan, Miss Nan Nan, Vice Director of Today Art Museum, to create the last installation in this exhibition. The show was expected to free the artistic dreams of children and help them excel in future like those paper planes filled with dreams.

Art Education Program for Transient Children
“Art Education Program for Transient Children”, the long-term project co-sponsored by Today Art Museum & JPMorgan, was debuted on September 2009. It was an event of public interest to promote the merging of special groups with urban life through art education. After three years’ efforts and exploration, “Art Education Program for Transient Children” gradually developed a teaching system applicable to transient children. This system divided the teaching materials into three sectors: development of appreciation of beauty, training of fine art skills & exploration of national art. In addition, outdoor activities were organized to help children to capture artistic inspiration from natural & human landscapes. A group of teachers with solid art education expertise & appreciating methods was gathered to integrate their learning from the courses with daily classroom activities. More & more children were benefited from this project.

During the past 3 years, over 80 staff directly participated in “Art Education Program for Transient Children”, including professional fine art teachers, employees from Today Art Museum, social workers, volunteers etc. More than 420 children from transient families, 25 teachers & over 429 transient families were benefited from this project. Over 2200 transient children were indirectly benefited through expansion of this project in schools.

A Collective Presentation of 3 Years’ Growing Experience of Transient Children

The professional team of teachers in “Art Education Program for Transient Children” was comprised of young artists & fine art education experts. Over 30 artists (Sukai Ding, Lijun Wang, Bo Zhou etc.) joined the team for complete fine art education for students from New Citizen School. Mengbo Feng, Changchun Liu, Yang Song & other well-known artists participated in the project when they held solos in Today Art Museum by directly interacting with students. Transient students not only learned abundant fine art knowledge, but also enhanced skills on color match & appreciation of spacial beauty. They also learned to bring their experience with “beauty” in reality into appreciation of art works resonate with art and to know the moving power of art through visiting exhibitions.

Zhengyan Tan & other artists were invited to coach on various national & traditional disciplines of art, including themed courses such as basics on Beijing Opera, performance & facial make-up, basics on shadow puppet, producing methods & performance, basics on ceramics, folk paper cutting & its contemporary development. More systematic, complete & interesting experiences were added to “Art Education Program for Transient Children”. These efforts were also valuable to the carrying on of traditional art.

Our Diary of Growth——Art Exhibition of Transient Childrenrecorded more than 180 works from students of three New Citizen Schools who participated in “Art Education Program for Transient Children” through diary. The exhibits included paintings, clay sculptures, prints, designs, calligraphic works, shadow figures, paper cuttings, installation and so on. It was a collective presentation of three years’ achievements of students through recordings by artistic works, photographs & videos of transient children.