Dahlberg, Laura
Laura Dahlberg & Keuruun yhteiskoulu, kuvataiteen valinnaisryhmät
Boundaries have limits too
2018/ The Year of Children’s Culture by Keuruu municipality
We carried out the art work, a concrete pyramid in Keuruu Rajatalo together with the 8th and 9th grade pupils in the spring of 2018. Altogether over 50 pupils took part in the creation of the work. The theme of the work was boundaries and we approached the theme from the point of view of a personal experience of limits or boundaries. I asked the young people to ponder what they felt was a limiting factor, a barrier to their own actions, their future or dreams.
The pupils created a symbol for their own limitations inside a circular petri dish. They chose the material and process according to what they felt best described their own feeling of limitedness. Petri dish symbols were attached to a large triangular shaped concrete tile and the tiles were assembled into a pyramid which was placed in the garden of Rajatalo, to symbolize the burial of apprehensions and experiences of barriers in young people’s lives.
The idea was to help pupils observe and deal with experiences of barriers and to deliberate about their causes. Would it be possible to let go and bury one’s own barriers to empower the experience of one’s capabilities? Or to come out with one’s own human limitations and act accordingly?
The title ‘Boundaries have limits too’ refers to the impermanence and conventionality of limits. The limits or restrictions vary from society to society and from era to era. Through our art work I want to claim that one does not have to submit to limitations and barriers. Small individual works assembled together also express group power and the things we share with one another. I encouraged everyone to make their own choices for the art piece and to listen to their own feelings about the theme of boundaries.
