OrnaMental Map
A creative and collborative technique to map the ornaments of your neighbourhood. The activity enhances observation and collaborative skills while it also helps to look at details of our everyday environment differently.
Step-by-Step:
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Introduction - What is an ornament ?
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Walk in the neighbourhood and capturing ornaments by making photos or drawings
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Optional blended part: collecting ornaments at home
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Co-creative workshop: linking our ornamanets together
Skills to learn
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Improving kills in visual content making
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Soft skills (work in group)
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Awareness about environment through recycling
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Discovery of local visual environment
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Stroytelling and verbal self expression
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Creating bridges between local culture, culture of origin and each other.
Why to work with ornaments?
Ornaments have dozens of different uses, functions and meanings broadcasting universal and very specific messages at the same time. Their main characteristics that make them apt to reuse and recycle :
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they are free from ideology still they are closely connected to ethnic, religious or cultural identities
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they can be adapted to many different material and digital artistic medias
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there are easy and simple methods to create them even without having special artistic skills
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creating them has a therapeutic aspect and a calming effect.
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They are everywhere and it's possible to approach many different topics through them.
1. Introduction
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Explain what an ornament is and show examples from different visual cultures
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Give instructions about how to take quality pictures during the photo walk: TIPS
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Use printed or online maps of the neighbourhood to identify spots where photos were taken.
2. Photo walk
Take a walk in the neighborhood and make some photos about anything that can be transformed into geometric ornament, such as drainers, fence, pavement, wheels, etc: :
3. Collecting ornaments at home (optional)
Look around at home. Pick up some objects such a piece of cloth, a book or anything else containing or representing geometrical ornaments. It can be an object with a personal story, which is important for you or something linked to your culture of origin. Such as this pillow with Hungarian folk patterns or this scarf embroidered by Syrian ladies. Make photos or skatches of them.
4. Upcycling objects with OrnaMental Maps
Pick up a piece of furniture, a wooden board, a piece of textile or any smaller object that you don't use anymore. You may use anything that you find it in the street, thrown away by your neighbors or at home, in the cave : any tired or shabby piece.
If you work in group, use unvarnished wooden board measuring at least 30 x 40 cm so that 3 or 4 may sit around it comfortably. If you are more then 4, use a larger board or more than one: 1 board per 3 or 4 persons. You can also work on textile, such as used sheets or table cloths.
5. Prepare your material
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pencils, erasers, acrylic paint or markers
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paper sheets to make skatches
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plastic containers (such as smaller recycled bottle tops to mix the paint and bigger ones for water and brushes if you work with paint
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eventually rules and compasses
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varnish (if you want to finalize your object to use it)
6. Form groups of 3 or 4 persons and sit around the board, sheet, whatever you have.
7. Share your ornaments
Show each other your ornament photos or sketches. Show where they were made. You can also print them to have them before your eyes or just observe them for a while and retain the basic lines of your ornaments.
8. Discussion during the drawing process
Choose a topic to talk about while you'll be drawing. It can be about your visual experiences in your neighborhood or in the locality where you're originally from. You can also compare them. Try to give a visual description about things that you like there and those that you don't.
In parallel, each of you will begin to draw with a pencil at different points of the board. Use the ornaments on your photos as a starting point for your drawing that you'll continue to develop in a half conscious way while you are either talking or listening to the others.
OrnaMental maps is a technique based on a half conscious way of creating patterns. The aim is to liberate you from the stress of wanting to create something beautiful and well-done but also to help you to get to know each other by sharing stories. To reach these two goals at the same time, you will use the technique of divided attention.
While you talk or you listen to the others, the visual descriptions might also influence the patterns you draw.
9. Creating bridges
As the patterns you draw each of you independently expands on the surface of thee board, at one point, they will get close to each other. At that moment, you will have to find solutions together how to link them to each other. You have several solutions, you will find some examples below.
Linking the patterns is a symbolic gesture: you need to think about how to unite different universes, how to create connections.
Ideas to create transitions or connections between your geometrical ornaments:
Delimitation of patterns by adding stripes
Overlapped patterns
Use of an imaginary grid into which you can fit different forms
Leaving empty spaces
Linking elements with lines or by adding simple forms between them
10. Colouring
Add your colors. Colors may introduce additional rhythms to your patterns, "brake" them or vary them. But color may also be the key for a harmonious appearance of all the different geometric patterns. For example, you can decide to use the different shades of only one or two colors such as the red on this example of an OrnaMental map.
If you work with more then one group at once, so on several objects, you can also create connections between there separate objects, for example by using the same range of colors on each.
