• Matt Milkowski
with students at Kenwood Academy, Chicago
Challenge: Students wrap objects and surfaces in a room with a textured material such as aluminum foil.
Materials: cheap wrapping material (foil, plastic wrap, wrapping paper, fabric, etc...), tape, scissors
Process:
• Teacher introduces environmental artists such as Christo/Jeanne Claude
• Choose a section of the room, or the entire room as the environment to transform
• Students break into teams to wrap individual objects, wall, desk/table tops, tape cutters, foil distributors, etc...
• Students wrap for majority of period, or the project may continue across several periods in one day to wrap larger area
• Teacher or students photograph altered environment as final product or set for photo (Consider using one light source, or wrapping a student as the model in the shot.)
Lesson Expansion:
• Students work in groups to wrap smaller scale desktop areas• Sketch and plan various public spaces in the school that can be transformed, and wrap as a school-wide art happening
• Each students wraps one object with a unique physical texture (crumbled paper, old tests, coins, etc...) and photographs before and after shots. Final product is a diptych photograph.
