The void in sculpture as a didactic resource for children’s plastic expression: ways of making worlds

Abstract

This classroom innovation proposal focuses on the context of children’s art education, through the concept of the void of sculptures, in which an active teaching-learning strategy takes place where the construction of space is the core of the study. . To this end, works by authors such as Naum Gabo, Pablo Gargallo, Jorge Oteiza or Eduardo Chillida are worked on in which both matter and emptiness coexist for the configuration of space, giving meaning, at the same time, to the three-dimensional work. From this premise, in the simultaneous coexistence of mass and air, the image is brought to the fore, addressing the three-dimensionality of sculpture in the third year of the early childhood education stage. The construction of the body through verticality in the sculpted space and embraced by the void, is addressed in the complexity of children’s artistic development, in a relationship beyond aesthetic and cognitive simplicity, giving way to a research methodology based on the arts, halfway between teaching, workshop practice, visual perception and the development of abstract thought. A proposal that seeks the autonomous work of students based on their own inquiry and exploring new formal models, such as three-dimensional forms that contain openings, matter or incomplete parts, combining both, allowing creativity, imagination and plastic empowerment to flourish from the earliest ages.