CHILDREN’S PICTUREBOOKS | PROGRAMME 2018-19
Collaboration between Joan Triadú Library and ACVic Centre of Contemporary Arts during the 2018-19 school year.
Workshops took place studying two children’s picture-books: The House, by Roberto Innocenti and Patrick Lewis, in the first term, and the picture-books of Suzy Lee's The Border Trilogy (Mirror, Wave and Shadow) in the second.
The workshops form part of the Joan Triadú Library's Encouraging Reading programme, and is part of the ACVic's Miniespai projects, in a collaboration between the two agencies which began in 2016.
In this initiative, 1st year student groups from all of the town's secondary schools may participate. This year, 12 groups of 1st ESO students from the Col·legi FEDAC Pare Coll, Col·legi Sagrat Cor de Jesús, Escola Vedruna-Escorial Vic, Institut de Vic and Institut La Plana took part. A total of 360 students participated.
The House is a large-format picture-book which recreates the entire twentieth century, with the fixed image of an Italian farmhouse and the changes that occur over a hundred years. With this story crossing over between fiction and historical documentation, we may glimpse how key moments in contemporary history affected an Italian anonymous family.
In the picture-books Mirror, Wave and Shadow from The Border Trilogy, Suzy Lee explores the creative possibilities of the books' central fold at the hand of a girl who plays with waves, with a mirror, and with the shadows of items from your storage room. The middle fold, the physical element of the book, becomes an active part in the narrative of the albums. It becomes a border that allows for play between reality and fiction, dream or imagination.
The two terms' activities have been considered and thought out holistically. In the first term, the workshop and debate revolves around the moments which have marked the history of the 20th century, through the details with which the walls of a European farmhouse have been impregnated. Innocenti's illustration is very realistic, and demands that details and almost imperceptible symbols be closely examined, and so, the related activity is also focused on a detailed artistic work.
In contrast, in the second term, we study three albums without words, with more suggestive and less realistic illustrations, which lead us to a more physical work, a holistic and multidisciplinary experience. There are various practical activities on themes such as reflection, projection, shadow, mirror, imagination, and the portrait, among others. The debate will consider reality, subjectivity and perspective.
