Sara María Skúladóttir

 

The master’s project Back to the Future focuses on a course for 8^th to 10^th graders that offers a mix of arts education, museum and sustainability education.

 

The goal of the project is to raise young people’s awareness of the issues of sustainability, spark their interest in Icelandic cultural heritage and train them in applying critical and cultural literacy to the artistic process.

 

The project was tested on a group of girls from 8^th grade who worked on an assignment based on a visit to the National Museum of Iceland, involving ideas about sustainability, multi-disciplinary work and artistic creation.

 

The project was completed over a duration of three classes. In the first class, the students were introduced to the concepts of sustainability and cultural heritage through the works of artists and designers that have based their work on those two concepts.

 

The second class was a field trip to the National Museum, where the heritage exhibit was observed from the perspective of sustainability and information on the living habits of older generations was used to shine a critical light on the way we live today.

 

Students worked on sketches and ideas for the course’s final project, which was to select an item or concept from the museum and create a new version of it for the future.

 

In the third and final class of the course, students finished their ideas and sketches and introduced them to the class. They also worked on a group assignment and participated in a debate.

 

Students were not expected to deliver a finished version of their final project, but instead the emphasis was on the creative process and dialogue.

 

 

Sara María Skúladóttir

Advisors: Dr. Ásthildur Jónsdóttir and Dr. Ellen Gunnarsdóttir 

2018