The creative workshop took place on March 20-24, in the gallery "R+" (Galeria R+, Szczecin, Poland). The area transformed into a kind of collective creative cave, or "lair" in a positive sense, where the participants were deeply engaged in the creative processes.
Over the course of five non-stop creative days, materials and tools were discovered, and various applications or "activators" were used, frequently igniting academic knowledge, expanding each participant's unique plastic expression, challenging the visual aspects of communicating ideas, and provoking discussions about what is or what can be a drawing. These discoveries were expanded into a file of breathing experiences, "throwing" the participants into a state of creative flow. All of the participants in the workshop create, stay, and eat for five days, and some even take naps and crack jokes together for 12 hours.
During the workshop, the participants chose their own creative space, talked and shared their experiences. The large number of works created in less than five days was especially surprising. On the first morning of the workshop, one could still hear such statements as: "I will have to go to a lecture, to a meeting", but none of them fulfilled their intentions. The workshop was attended by students of the Graphic Design and Graphics study program, and a friend of one of the participants, Dima from Ukraine.
The participants highly appreciated and treasured this time also because in the academy students do not have the luxury of not only having an individual but also a permanent audience for the whole course for their creative works. There are several common spaces, but they are much more intended for clean work done on computers and tablets, and for "dirty" i.e. the study of painting and drawing processes is shared by students of all courses, so after the lecture, you must tidy up, gather your tools, take away the work you started, free the easel for someone else.
In many cases, this results in processes breaking down, ideas being forgotten, boredom setting in, and a number of students simply stop "applying" and switch to digital solutions. Professor Marija Marcelionytė-Paliukė asked if the heads of the academy know their needs, she said yes, but not so quickly. This academy is young (founded in 2010), only the third rector has been elected, by the way - now the head of the academy is an architect. Before that, there were two rectors representing the community of musicians (art, design, architecture, media and various fields of music and performing arts studies are conducted at the Szczecin Academy).
Future graphic and object designers, computer game and virtual space developers study in the main building, ceramics, wood, 3d printing and other workshops operate here.
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The city has a contemporary art center located in a former factory building. There are galleries, and many green areas. And anyway, a beautiful, cozy city, whose culture and mood, at least in my opinion, is very strongly determined by Berlin, which is just 150 km away. Berlin can be reached by train for 6 euros if you gather a group of five passengers. Professor mentioned: „I told the students that if she lived here, every weekend, well, every other weekend, would be spent in Berlin“.
The creative workshop at the Szczecin Art Academy was supported by the VDA Erasmus+Staff Mobility Program.
