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Planetary
Survival Kit
Summary
Survival can include the mind and spirit as well as the body and
the physical environment. This activity is a useful art project
that allows students to readily pick up the idea of survival as
an opportunity for expression. Students are to use the concept
of a survival kit as a basis for designing and making a sculptural
object (installation) or situation (performance). The activity
integrates music, movement, and visual arts.
Subject
Area
This activity has been designed for the Visual Arts curriculum
at the secondary level as part of a unit dealing with three-dimensional
art.
Learning
Outcomes
Teaching, learning and evaluation will focus on the student’s
ability to:
- Design
and construct a planetary survival kit;
- Demonstrate
technical control of materials and tools;
- Create
and follow a plan through to a finished product;
- Originate
and visually interpret a theme through the medium of a planetary
survival kit.
Classroom
Development
- Tell
students that they will be constructing a “survival kit,”
and that they will be responsible for choosing the form which
it will take.
- Have
them consider the question of whose survival they will address;
their own, their species, another species, the biosphere, Gaia.
Allow students to add to this list.
- Review
or introduce formal elements in terms of environmental examples.
Line, colour, value, space, texture, shape and form, as well
as the principles of balance, unity, contrast, emphasis, pattern,
movement and rhythm can all be reviewed.
- Discuss
the role of a survival kit and how the students are to approach
their own design. Students are to research and design their
own ideas for a planetary survival kit, including a theme, main
idea, or message. They are to express some aspect of themselves
and/or their relationship to the material(s) they are working
with, and their environment; both altered and unaltered by humans.
- In separate
mini-discussions, have groups consider the following concepts:
survival, economic, social, political, and environmental themes.
Groups should be prepared to share their ideas in a class discussion.
- The
next step is to brainstorm the physical options for the construction
of their kit. There are no restrictions as to the form that
the kits might take.
- Students
will be responsible for not only the construction of the kit,
but a written rationale and an oral explanation of their kit.
As a minimum criteria, students must consider symbolic objects
and spiritual ideas while not ignoring economic and environmental
realities.
- Once
students have completed their kits, they should display them
publicly along with a one page typed rationale explaining their
work. Make sure that students are aware that this rationale
is common with some type of art showings.
Materials
The materials depend on the media chosen by students, but may
include: plaster, wire mesh, and paints. Ideally, found and recycled
objects should be considered preferable to new products. Examples
of the work of other students, other cultures, and other time
periods are very important in allowing students to see how their
work fits into local and global contexts.
Timing
This activity can take place over a week or two. It is basically
divided into two parts. The first part covers the planning stage.
The introduction and class discussion should be followed by periods
allotted to research, planning, and design. In the second half
of this activity, students will complete their pieces, present
them to the class, and discuss their work and the activity as
a whole.
Cross-disciplinary
Links
Activities present within this curriculum guide provide excellent
links with other curricula.
English—The activity Earth Prayers, Poems and Invocation
from Volume One provides spiritual raw materials to kit construction.
In Volume Two, the activity Space—The Final Frontier addresses
the question of what we need to survive.
Science—In Volume One, the activity Space Travel Project
can be used to link the artistic aspects of the kit with technical
considerations.
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