Main Goal

This activity will provide you with a rich assortment of insights that will help you answer your questions using visual, emotional, and associative layers of reflection.

Organisation

Length: 45 minutes. Groups need to have at least 4 students.

Resources

Large sheet of paper/card
Scissors
Glue/Pritt Stick
Various collage materials e.g. Magazine, Newspapers, pre-cut pictures, fabric, buttons, thread, coloured pencils, sharpies, tissue coloured paper, etc.

Outcome

By the end of this activity you should have a large visual collage that interprets a problem or situation.  Each participant should take part in presenting the collage and should be able explain their thought processes and motivations for including the images.

Applicability

This activity can be used at any point in a project however it is best to use at the beginning as a way of gaining original and unexpected insights in response to a situation/problem.

This task can be used to introduce students the basics of visual language.

Next?

Use the collage as a visual cue to support discussion and idea generation.  When evaluating your ideas you should refer back to collage to make sure you are staying on track.

  1. Write down a list of at least four questions about a situation or problem.
  2. Cluster the questions in four groups and give each a title.
  3. Bring together a group of the people involved and get them to sit around a table.
  4. Give each of them a large sheet of paper or cardboard.
  5. Place magazines, newspapers, pre-cut pictures, fabrics, buttons, thread, colour pencils and glue in the middle of the table. Ensure the material is varied.
  6. Ask each member of the group to draw two lines to divide their sheet into four equal-sized quadrants.
  7. Each quadrant will represent a group of questions. The participants will visually represent their answers per quadrant using the material available.
  8. Ask everyone to present and explain their collages while you take notes.

DOWNLOADS

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Visualization of the idea – jorge Grence