The Grade 9 and 10 Pre DP Art students recently visited the Vebikus Kunsthalle in Schaffhausen to experience the incredible work of artists Angelica Shaba Dreher, Andrin Winteler and Isabelle Krieg. These exhibitions were not paint on canvases, watercolour on paper, or a clay sculpture but more innovative and interactive. The first exhibition by Krieg immediately challenged one’s mind as what art is as students stepped over and in between small, mostly plastic children’s toys, from pez machines to puzzles and my little pony figures. In addition to the plastic there was the more natural driftwood, some short and some incredibly long which were placed at all different angles for the eye to see. Winteler liquified tyres, he had small videos of tyres bending out of shape and transforming as well as a huge tractor tire with a circular track through its middle with a light travelling round reminding one of the solar system. The exhibition by Dreher was colourful and showed our students how art can be created using colourful metals, the artworks almost looked like robots but it was the huge curtain which caught most students’ eyes.

In addition to seeing the exhibition our workshop leader asked students to try and draw a tyre in a transformed state inspired by the work of Winteler and to write a story about one of the children’s objects in Kriegs exhibition. Our visit was inspiring, eye opening and led students to challenge their own perspective of what art is. There was a clear appreciation for the artists and work exhibited and I look forward to seeing how the work we saw could inspire our students artistic journey whilst taking the Pre DP Art course.