Break the ice to get in the mood !

As part of the interdisciplinary autumn school in Strasbourg, we offer a coffee reception followed by ice breaking. The challenge? Choose a fun activity, non-disciplinary because it is a mixed public, and which activates transversal skills to prepare for the three-day workshops. At the Maisons pour la science, we are used to ice breaking, but we use themes related to STEM. Here, as we had a large number of documentary participants, we chose to take up a “neutral” activity for all, spotted at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Strasbourg
Inspired by the ExperiMAMC exhibition ” art through experience ” https://www.musees.strasbourg.eu/experimamcs
Material :
- Paper sheets
- Pencils
- Colors (optional)
- Titled works of contemporary art and sources printed in A4
Each participant discovers a character going three, or four behind his badge, during the coffee reception, to encourage them to meet others, he goes in search of his counterparts (ex : Mickey / Minnie / Donald ; Solo / Yoda / Darth Vador, etc. ) Once the group of three formed, we designate three roles : A back drawer, and two people whose role is the observation and description of the work to the ” blind ” drawer.
Objective :
To try to reproduce the painting with the help only of the descriptions of his two colleagues, by voice. The goal is not to perform artistically, but to take care to choose the right description criteria for the drawer (perspectives, plans, references understandable by all etc.)
It is obviously not necessary to choose paintings that are too well known (example : the Mona Lisa). Too easy !
The challenge lasts 5 minutes (or 8 minutes, if you want to add colors details) . We then compare with the original painting and we discuss in a group of difficulties and possible improvements in terms of communication. A general tour can also be done according to the time allowed.
References for paintings : https://www.tate.org.uk/search?type=artwork
OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
Elena Iuliani (November 22, 2019). Break the ice to get in the mood ! SPOON Open Notebook 🥄 SPOON . Retrieved February 14, 2025 from https://doi.org/10.58079/ujat