2008 September «

Hello, people. I haven’t been updating this but I’ve been busy with a couple of projects with some people. Some of them exist only in my mind but some of them are concrete. Here’s one: Before we went to Austria, we (Artreach) started working on a mural for a school in Utrecht called UniC.

Martin was coming to the Netherlands and is interested in doing a mural with us.

Since we are interested in the way of learning in a new school in Utrecht, and because I go there myself, the idea of painting something there came up. This school gives the student more freedom to explore themselves and the world. The students are independent from the teachers. They can also organize their own activities. It’s not the kind of school where students sit memorizing facts and listening to teachers the whole day. Knowledge is not measured by grades and numbers and scores you get from tests (in fact, tests are rare in this school). Wow, I’ve seen lot of schools. Never thought there’s a school where a child is free to learn! Having access to more sources, hear both sides of a story. The information you get is not biased because you have to search for the information yourself through different ways. They also look at a person as a person and not just “a student”.

My favorite part is that there’s a subject called “Vrije Keus” or “Free Choice” where you can learn about whatever you want to learn in whatever way you want to learn in: research about something, interview people, experience (learning by doing) or whatever: you have the power to choose what you want to learn. Go out of the school and learn! They give you a certain time to do that project and in the end, you can present it to them. Each one teach one! It’s a pretty good school, I would say.

So yes. I asked a teacher in that school, Ruben Koeweiden, if we can paint a wall in the school. He asked the headmaster about it and the next thing we know, Martin, Hiyas, Marikit, Jun and I were brainstorming on what to paint.

Thanks to Ruben Koeweiden for everything. Gracias!

And so we searched for images we can use. And started to paint. We had to get it done really quick, though, since we were leaving for Austria. I wish we had more time.