11.04.2022

3rd graders visit the “Portinari para Todos” exhibition

By Bruna Cronfli

The 3rd-grade (Y3) classes went on their first Field Trip of the year. The students visited the MIS Experience to observe the artwork of Cândido Portinari in the exhibition “Portinari for All”.

An assignment was conducted in the classroom prior to the field research. As a trigger for the conversation, the teachers put a sentence on the blackboard: “Do you know why I paint so many boys on the seesaw and swing? To put them up in the air, like angels.” The sentence was written by Portinari, and the students were allowed to raise hypotheses about why the artist painted so many boys and girls on the swing in his works.

In addition, they read books about the artist and his biography – ”Céus e Estrelas” – and then discussed in pairs what they had understood from the texts. One of the students shared with the group that his great-grandfather, a doctor who was a contemporary of Portinari, was the one who discovered that it was the blue paint that intoxicated him.

When they arrived at MIS, the groups were received by monitors, who explained that the exhibition was divided into three different areas. In the first room, there were several brushes hanging from the ceiling and, as the light projections reflected on the children’s bodies, they changed the color of each one’s skin. 

When visiting the reproduction of Portinari’s studio, the students had the mission of finding pieces of his works, previously distributed by the monitors. In one of the rooms, they were also given geometric figures and put together puzzles of some of the paintings. Finally, they were asked to find images in the works that corresponded to the words they had received.

The exhibition allowed connections to the first two Units of Inquiry, “We Can Change the World” and “Materials Matter”. Themes such as diversity, war and peace, the artist’s impacts on the world, how he lived, his relationships, and who influenced him could be seen up close. The students actively participated in the interactive proposals in the exhibition: they investigated, had fun with the color game the painter used, observed the huge model of the buildings around the world where the works are exhibited, and experienced Portinari’s different phases through giant screen projections.