MYPD Body Art

In their final unit for Visual Arts, the MYPD students were challenged to use the body as a ’canvas’.  Aside from working with regular canvas, sugar paper and textured paper and sculptures, they were being challenged to use the body as a canvas.  Historically, various cultures have used the body as a canvas through tattooing, piercings, body paint as rituals for different ceremonies, and scarring.  The body has been used as means of preserving and transferring information be it religious, genealogical, ceremonial, etc. In this unit, they had to choose a concept that they wished to represent.  They developed a series of sketches and from these sketches they had to choose their final design.  As with any artwork on paper, the students were assigned a model (from the MYPA class) which acted as a ‘canvas’.  Students had to consider the placement of their design on this ‘canvas’, their colour combinations, any other material they wish to add to their design.  All the students in the D Class chose a unique concept to work with, and using body paint they transferred their designs onto their ‘canvas’.  The designing exercise and preparations took a few weeks, the actual painting of the ‘canvas’ took place in one day (approx 4hours).  The Body Art Unit culminated in a show where the D students presented their works to the other MYP students in an assembly.  All students involved thoroughly enjoyed this experience.