University of São Paulo School of Communications and ArtsVisual Arts Graduate ProgramMaria Christina de Souza Lima Rizzi Ana Cristina Chagas dos Anjos

Art Education and Environment: Aesthetic experiences, teacher formation and collaborative actionsThe present article proposes some reflections about some actions developed during an Art Education and Environment project by IPEH (Human Ecology Research Institute), a social organization located in the city of Caieiras (São Paulo, Brazil), from 2006 to 2008.

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The IPEH takes as its principles the idea that the universe is life and that all beings, animated and inanimated ones, have the right to preservation and continuity of their own species, under the penalty of compromising their lives as well as the others ,́ emphasizing that everybody has “an existential value” that transcends utilitarian values. They consider that there isn’t a social science separated from an ecological science because it is not possible to study the human systems and processes of environmental systems in an isolated manner.

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The action was developed in Vale do Juquery and Serra da Cantareira regions, situated in the north-northwest part of the metropolitan area of São Paulo, which includes the municipal districts of Mairiporã, Cajamar, Caieiras, Francisco Morato, Franco da Rocha and other districts of São Paulo in Anhanguera, Perus and Jaraguá / Parada de Taipas.

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This referred to region has a population of 900,000 inhabitants and it is composed by important patrimony areas, both natural and architectonic, such as Serra da Cantareira State Park and Juquery Farm, with the archithectural patrimony of the ancient Psychiatric Hospital / The Hospital Complex of Juquery, projected by Ramos de Azevedo.

Photo of Juquery State Park, Franco da Rocha, SP, Brazil

© IPEH/CCSFR (Dr Franco da Rocha´s Health Community Council)

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The actions understood the Human Ecology as the science subfield that studies the relations between the beings and natural or constructed environments and were based on Ana Mae Barbosa´s Triangular Proposal for Art Teaching.

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The actions aimed at working with Art in its different ways of expression, rising the development of human consciousness, as well as acting in the defense of the environment by promoting its conservation and recovery.

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The environmental education is considered, by The Federal Education Council of Brazil, not as one more discipline in the educational background, but as a perspective of education that should permeate all the other disciplines.

The interdisciplinary thinking and acting support themselves in the principle that any source of knowledge is complete in itself, and that, through the dialogue with other forms of knowledge, the way of interpenetrating them, new developments in the comprehension of reality and its representation will come up.

Teachers in activity at Juquery State Park, Franco da Rocha, SP, Brazil

© IPEH/CCSFR (Dr Franco da Rocha´s Health Community Council)

1 Seminar for the formation of teachers in environmental art education. Semi-presential course for teachers of environmental art education.Being opened in the I Seminar for the formation of teachers in environmental art education, at Centro Cultural Caieiras, from June to November 2006, the course was given by 130 teachers of many disciplines and areas of knowledge, all of them from 79 public schools that form Vale Juquery-Cantareira, thanks to a partnership with the Board of Teachers of Caieiras Region, in the context of the fourth edition of the environmental conservation and education program of “Chão Verde Terra Firme” (Green land firm ground).

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The semi-presential course tried to work the critical reading of the images of patrimonial (cultural and natural resources in the process of teaching and learning of environmental education. It presented a “critical reading” from a dialogue with art education, more as a possibility, in the pedagogical work of the teacher, of comprehension and a practical appropriation of the patrimonial and environmental.

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Among the activities developed, some images produced by the artist Clovis França, made during his photographic trips around Brazil, were presented, read and discussed. These images that present, all together, natural, cultural and social contents.Some examples of the reading of the images realized by elementary education teachers, from different areas of knowledge, in the course of the activities.

A dam in Quixadá, Ceará, Brazil.

© Clovis França

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Observing this picture, what catches your attention the most?Knowing that a photo is a choice, it is a construction of the photographer’s look, in youropinion, how did he choose to take this picture?What visual elements did he value?Do you notice any organic formations in this landscape?Do you notice any modular structures? Which ones?Can we say that these visual repetitions bring movement and rythm to this photo?Do you consider this photo as an image of quality? Why?What sensations does it transmit?In this landscape, there are natural elements and elements created by men. How do they talk to each other?Which title would you give to this image?

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Teacher A: “What caught my attention was the beautiful landscape. The photographer must have had his reasons to choose this landscape like, for example: the different forms of the relief, the different biodiversity, the anthropic action in the middle of the nature. He valued: the river, the rocks, the vegetation and the bridge. Can the organic forms be natural things? Yes, there are. The modular structures are: the bridge (man) and the relief (nature). Yes. These repetitions compose the landscape. Yes. We notice that the photographer did everything he could to show the natural elements, besides the elements created by man. The picture transmits a sensation of peace and harmony. Yes, through human construction we have access to this landscape. The title can be: “The Peak of the Chicken.”

Burned grass, Bahia, Brazil

© Clovis França

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What do you see in this image?Which elements can be noticed in this photo?Which colors are present in the image? Which elements do these colors refer to?Has this landscape passed through any kind of change?Considering the visual elements such as: lines, forms, colors, nuances of colors and textures, how can we establish the transformation suffered by this landscape?What sensations does this photo cause in you?Would you take a picture like this? Why?

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Teacher B: “The rebirth of nature after a burn. The elements are: the grass being born again, the burn of the land. Yes, it passed through a transformation. We can establish it through the rebirth because a new life started growing and the remains of the burn. A sensation of despair, escape and rebirth. I would take it to show not only how men can terminate natural life, but also that nature can be born again from the ashes.”

The district of Luz, in São Paulo

© Clovis França

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At the moment you get in contact with this image, what comes to your mind?What title would you give to this picture?What are the predominant forms in it?Which colors are in it?How are they distributed?What can we deduce about the inhabitants of this place?Which elements, present in this picture, give support to these affirmations?

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Teacher C: “Lack of organization and respect. No limits. Deteriorated anthropic formations. White, green, black, yellow, orange, blue and purple. Spread around the image, forming sad figures of a social reality. Lack of organization and respect to other people. Clothes hanging on windows and patrimonial conservation.”

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The educators who took part in the course were, in the most part, primary school teachers, who knew the Triangular Proposal for Teaching Art and elaborated, from practices of perception and reading of the landscape, some pedagogical materials, iniciatives and proposals for projects in education and environmental conservation, in patrimonial education and the adequate use and handling of the soil, which composed the last class of the virtual online course, entitled “Environmental Art Education”.

2The paradidactic publication O rio pelos trilhos: introdução à história de Perus e Cajamar .

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Cover of the book O rio pelos trilhos (The river through its rails).

© IPEH/CCSFR (Dr Franco da Rocha´s Health Community Council)

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The paradidactic publication O rio pelos trilhos (The river through its rails) is a complementary proposition to the program of the same name, whose execution was concluded by the IPEH (Human Ecology Research Institute) in the beginning of 2006. With free sample distribution to schools, libraries inside and outside the region, social entities, technical organs, segments of public sectors, universities, etc., the publication, besides sharing the objectives and targets of the program “O rio pelos trilhos”, intended to realize a synthesis and give continuity to the debate accomplished together with educators, students and leaders of Perus and Cajamar. Its objective was to be a work-synthesis of the debates that occurred, marked by a special worry about serving as a support for the teachers´ work.

Among the images presented and critically read, we can point out:

The Cement Factory, August 1930 (General view of Portland Cement Company), belonging to Alexandre Garcia Collection / Nelson Camargo Collection of IFPPC – Instituto de Ferrovias e Preservação do Patrimônio Cultural (The Railroad and Cultural Patrimony Preservation Institute).

3Art Education workshop. Semi-presential course of Environmental Perception. Environmental Art Education DVD: building an experience with art education The Art Education workshop was held on November 6th and 7th, 2007 at The Museum of Contemporary Art of the University of São Paulo (USP), as a part of the activities of the 3rd State Encounter of Collective Teachers, Green Rooms, Sustainable Educators District and other state partners, promoted by the Program of Formation of Environmental Educators of the Department of Environmental Education of the Brazilian Ministry of the Environment and opened the presential activities of the Environmental Perception Semi-presential Course named “Environmental Art Education: building an experience with art education”.Visual Art

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The participant educators handling and observing objects at MAC workshop

©IPEH/CCSFR (Dr Franco da Rocha´s Health Community Council).

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The option of priorizing the art education in an environmental education project comes from the fact that the challenges for art education in the present are not considered different from the other areas of knowledge and actuation: clarity of objectives, adequacy of the methods to the objectives, consciousness and ethical acting, search for esthetic quality. In special, because the esthetic quality present in artistic tasks demands harmony, entireness and completeness.

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Living the esthetic quality is an experience that overspreads in all areas of being and of knowledge. In this sense, the person esthetically “refined” by his personal and cultural references becomes more attentive to the perception of himself and of the ambience. Knowing how to give form to sensations and ideas. Knowing how to distinguish, choose, conceive and act.

Trully believing in these ideas, we involved the teachers of these districts of the surroundings of São Paulo. Nowadays, we dedicate ourselves to evaluate these actions in the sense of the creation of a new proposal of environmental art education in a dialogue with contemporary art production.