Plastic Boundaries and Transitional Objects

Summary

In this activity, students investigate how lines and shading define boundaries. Students explore boundaries to express their perceptions of the world around them. In doing so, students learn to blur these borders, or break the rules, to make the boundaries plastic in the traditional meaning of the term; frozen boundaries are thawed to free the imagination. Such imaginative plasticity is key to de-objectifying the world. The treatment of the Earth as an object is often seen as the root of our conflict with the environment.
In order to alter our objectifying, delineating nature, students need to shed self-consciousness in an environment safe from ridicule. The teacher must feel confident in his/her ability to maintain a constructive environment.
Everyday objects such as dolls, toys, and maps, often called transitional objects, are used to enable students to play with boundaries and overcome the limitations we impose on ourselves.
The summary activity will entail the production of work of whatever creative form the student chooses, based on the student’s understanding of the tension that is created by our objectifying tendencies.

Subject Area

This activity has been designed for the Visual Arts curriculum. With minor modifications, this activity fits easily into the English curriculum as part of a poetry or creative writing unit. It can be used throughout grade 9 to 12 depending on the level of the outcome and the sophistication of the examples used. It easily follows a unit on drawing.

Learning Outcomes

Teaching, learning and evaluation will focus on the student’s ability to:

• Demonstrate an inquisitive attitude with regard to ideas and self-expression;
  
• Participate in group activities, respecting the manner in which others attempt to express themselves;
  
• Research concepts of ecological limits;
  
• Manipulate concepts of boundaries, ambiguity and imagination;
  
• Investigate and write about other people’s work;
  
• Integrate an understanding of the non-material aspects of our world with their personal experience.
  

Materials

A variety of symbols are required for this activity, perhaps in the form of overhead transparencies or large cards. Also required are a collection of maps of various projections.

Timing

This activity can be done in a few periods, or form the foundation of a major unit, depending on the depth to which the class is to approach the material.

Background

Art disease is caused by a hardening of the categories.
Adina Reinhardt
In order to develop a new relationship with the Earth, it is important to see how people define and make categories. The way in which we categorize is fundamental to the way in which we understand anything that impacts upon our lives, especially in how we relate to our planet. How humans relate to nature is an extension of our development as children, and is intrinsic to our understanding of existence. In order to build a solid relationship with the natural environment of which we are part, we must explore our primary development as infants; we must find the point at which we learn to build boundaries and categories which separate ourselves from the world around us.

Classroom Development

1. A variety of adult symbols can be examined and discussed with the intention of interpreting not only what they mean, but what bias is connotatively conveyed along with the main meaning of the symbol. By interpreting symbols in this way, students can learn how they interpret and relate to their physical and cultural environments.
   Transitional objects are important because of the cultural baggage they carry. For example, maps generally reflect a northern bias, with north at the top of the page suggesting north is the “top of the world.” The old Mercator map emphasizes North America and Russia due for very political reasons. Most maps also show a Western bias by splitting the earth in the middle of the Pacific or India. By examining and discussing maps that counterpoint this type of bias, students can start to challenge some of their own learned biases that relate to physical relationships. For example, Australian maps with south at the top of the page are initially found to be very disturbing to students. Peters Projection maps show the areas of the various land masses in their proper proportions to each other, which diminishes Canada, Russia, and northern Europe, and emphasizes Africa and South America. Have students consider how their own learned bias has distorted their thinking.
   This step can be summarized by turning the whole concept of a map over to the class for discussion. All of the lines that make up a map are arbitrary, and at best representative. Any person having lived near a sea shore can explain how flexible the shore line is. Perhaps some students may suggest that a map is merely a projection of our identity; of our desire to make order out of nature.
   
   
2. This step involves challenging students to question what they are seeing. Hold up your hand before the class and ask “what do you see?” After students have made their comments, suggest the possibility that you are presenting four spaces before them. Discuss the implications of this way of seeing. The teacher can alternatively start with the theme of “projections” by holding up a hand in front of a slide projector and casting a shadow onto paper. The shadow’s image, once traced is a map, or representation of the “real” object (hand). Students can then be shown a series of maps (such as Mercator, Peters) to provide material for discussing the biases perceived or inherent in the map.
   
   
3. Next, have students examine and discuss the rich tradition of shape-shifting mythological figures from many cultures and historical periods. This aspect has the effect of blurring the divisions between human and animal. Students may realize that only since the Age of Reason have we eschewed our integral relationship with animals. The Cartesian separation or delineation of species and categories are as limiting and arbitrary as the lines separating two countries on a map. Ask students to contrast their experiences with the maps with this step of the activity.
   
   
4. Many works of literature and poetry suggest the blurring of boundaries as well. The art and poetry of William Blake are excellent examples of creative productions that manipulate traditional notions of line, form, and rigid conceptualization into works of art that are both organic and personal. Blake’s work joins experiences of steps one and two above into a creative whole. In the works of William Blake, the word “globe: normally describes a constrained and constricted enclosure” while “ocean; sea: imply an uncontrolled, destructive, overwhelming power, without form or creativity” (Stevenson, W.H. The Poems of William Blake. London: Longman, 1971.).
   Both ideas represent aspects of humanity. Blake’s poetic work manipulates convention at every step. He tricks the unwary reader into accepting the superficial simplicity of his Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience, while describing troublesome and even horrific images of oppression, manipulation and decay. The boundaries of the fettered mind ignore the stark reality of the situations he describes, while those who see the situations described by the poetry. When considering the poems, realize that they should not be discussed for the messages they convey, but for the way in which they represent a perception of reality; the strength in which they adhere to their own personal modes of perception without regard for social norms or standards.
   As Blake recounts his conversation with the Jewish prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel, he asks; whether they did not think at the time, that they would be misunderstood, & so be the cause of imposition. Isaiah answer’d. I saw no God, nor heard any, in a finite organical perception; but my senses discover’d the infinite in every thing, and as I was then persuaded, & remain confirm’d; that the voice of honest indignation is the voice of God, I cared not for consequences but wrote. William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Plate 12. Reprinted in Brian Hepworth, The Rise of Romanticism. Manchester: Carcanet, 1978.
   Have students contrast Blake’s way of perceiving reality with their own. Encourage the class to identify elements of Blake’s work that reveal these perceptions.
   
   
5. Students should examine the visual works of Blake, or perhaps Francis Bacon, or the cartoonist Ralph Steadman, so that they may discuss visual art from the same perspective. Ask them to consider the biases inherent in the work; the social and religious conventions under which the artist laboured; the attitudes toward nature and the cosmos exhibited in the work. Remind students that the idiosyncrasies that they may find amusing often had dire political or social consequences. Invite students to find analogous aspects of their cultural boundaries that seem rigid to them, but are merely social conventions.
   
   
6. Students viewing the works of Blake should consider the development of his techniques from those of an engraver working with lines to those of an illuminator working in acid baths, and other dynamic processes. Class discussion may consider the lack of a defined line, the integration of text and graphic in a single image, as well as the way in which the form of the image is reflected in the ideas presented in the text and process of production.
   
   
7. Consider requiring students to express their understanding of the philosophical elements of this activity through drawing and visual works. Encouraging synaesthetic responses will help students to understand the plasticity of the creative experience. Any of the drawing activities could be made more ecological by having the students make their own paper (see paper-making activity). Their own willow charcoal can also be easily made. Any of the painting activities could be done by students using hand-ground paints.
   
   
8. Again, the teacher could hold up a hand and lead a discussion on whether what is being held up (fingernails, skin, tissue) is a human or a natural object. What evidence is there for it being “human?” What evidence is there for it being “natural?” Students could also discuss whether dead skin is biotic or abiotic. This has introduced uncertainty into otherwise clear definitions.
   
   
9. Students then examine a series of works of art to look for a variety of ways of seeing spaces, kinds of biases, and types of multiple-meanings. Through a variety of works, the terms “negative” and “positive” space are to be introduced. Again, holding up the hand is a way to introduce negative and positive spaces, as well as perspective. In art, is very common for figure-ground reversals to be used to great affect, and examples such as the work of M. C. Escher should be shown.
   
   
10. Boundary questions are introduced by the teacher more explicitly by asking questions such as:
    • What is the border of my hand?
    • Where does it stop?
    • Do you see a line where you think the border of my hand is?
    • What about hair: Is it part of me or outside of me?
    • The interior of my stomach?
    
    
11. Ask students whether they think that the earth is flat or round. Of course it is flat. Have them look out the window. Ask them if they’ve ever fallen off the earth, and why they’re able to sit in their chairs without sliding away. Challenge them to prove you wrong using only examples from their personal experience. Even using globes and photographs, they should not find this easy. Ask them to explain how the perception of a flat earth would change the way in which they viewed the world.
    
    
12. Show the class a photo of the earth from space. This image has metaphoric resonance. Ask them:
    • Is the earth still flat?
    • Where is the limit, or perimeter of Earth?
    • Does it stop at the edge?
    • What is this edge?
    • What about the gas which is continually escaping from the earth? At which point can you say that it has actually left?
    
    
13. To begin the expressive component of the activity, students are asked to draw their perceptions of “themselves.” Depending on the level of the student’s skills, the teacher can suggest they consider where they perceive themselves to “end.” This activity could range from being a quick sketch (few minutes) to an in-depth self-portraiture.
    
    
14. Ask students to roughly sketch their perceptions of “the natural world.” This component should be accompanied by a discussion of how we define the “natural environment” and what is outside and what is inside? How does the artist decide how to determine the limits of the work? This activity could range from being a quick sketch to an in-depth landscape.
    Again, the student’s work need not be interpreted conventionally as representational (a recognizable depiction) in a conventional medium. For example, it could be a mixed media work make up of objects (twigs, leaves, nails, litter, snow) found in that environment or a collage of photos of experiences or places.
    
    
15. Students then create a work of art which expresses the relation between themselves and nature. The important aspect of this step is how the student visualizes or interprets his or her personal relationship with the earth.
    
    
16. Next, there should be a class discussion in which students present their works, including process work. The use of appropriate vocabulary should be encouraged. The question should be addressed: To what extent are “we” part of “nature” and the Earth. Introduce terms such as connectedness, wholeness, and web of life.
    
    
17. Wrap up Project—Have students attempt to illustrate what came out of this discussion, either individually or in small groups. This could be done in the medium of their choice. It could also be combined with other activities described here, such as the found objects activity (making sculpture from found objects).
    

Cross-disciplinary Links
Drama—the class could work with Visual Arts students to develop a performance based on the theme of definitions of boundaries, and connectedness.
Physical Geography—Students could pursue the map concepts or in Human Geography the anthropological aspects of mythological figures.
Mathematics—There are also boundaries of sets. Fuzzy sets include concepts based on fractal geometry (describing for example objects with limited volume but infinite surface area). In Calculus there is also the concept of limits.
Electronics—Fuzzy logic (based on the fact that there are not discrete boundaries between two points but only gradations from one to the other) can be explored in relation to this activity.
Biology—The animals which inspired the mythological figures could be examined. Also, the carrying capacity of an ecosystem follows from the study of limits.

References
Winnicott, D. W. Playing and Reality. London: Routledge, 1990.
Cirlot, J. C. Dictionary of symbols. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge, 1983.
Milner, Marion Blackett. On Not Being Able to Paint. 2nd ed. LosAngeles: J. P. Tarcher, 1983.
Zohar, Danah. Quantum Self: Human Nature and Consciousness Defined by the New Physics. New York: William Morrow, 1991.