4th international meeting at Oporto (Portugal)
18th to 23th October 2015
Have you ever had a trip which changed your life? We did. On October 18th 2015 six students went to Porto for a week because of the project called “Re: ART TRUeSTory”! This project we have been engaged since two years (2014-16) with our partner-school EASR Porto within Erasmus+ program. It was our 4th meeting and this time two students of ceramic and four students of graphic design visited our Portuguese friends.
It was very interesting experience in our life and it began already with our arrival to Porto at night. Three or four hours for sleeping and already in the morning we came to school to get new experience. We have met Portuguese teachers and the deputy head José António Fundo has arranged an excursion in the whole school for us. We have seen the modern school building with some works and posters of students on the walls (it was so unexpected and funny to see a familiar face on one of them) and very creative, hard-working atmosphere in the classes.
When Portuguese students worked on their project, we worked, too, but on ours. We had to create things to remember our project and we had to do it during the workshops. The first was our workshop in silk-screen technology. We decided to make print on the bags we have brought, but it was not a usual process for us, maybe only in the beginning it was easy, when we drew on a paper and then created it in computer programs, but then…? Fortunately, our great and awesome teacher Américo Torres came for help! He has shown us how to prepare stencil for silk-screen print and helped us to print it on the bags.
Then we had workshops according to our professions, we were divided for some time: graphic students tried to conquer typography with Vitor Hugo and José Guimarães revealed to ceramic students some secrets of typical Portuguese ceramics. Our graphic students had to create headlines or inscription they wanted to print, to find metal letters in magic lockers full of different metal letters by trying to type it with Vitor like in the old newspapers on special typography machine. The hardest moment in this work was to place the letters in the position where they would not move during typing, but Vitor was a perfect controller. At the same time, ceramic students played with Portuguese architecture decorators with José Guimarães who showed interesting ways of tiles decoration which are popular (most of the buildings in Porto are decorated by tiles of different colors, shapes, ornaments). Ceramic students used inspiration and advices which gave them José, they tried to decorate tiles in majolica and then they used some ways of decorating by relief. What amazing workshops we had!
One more workshop we had and we made… buttons pins! We had so fun with Leonardo Mira! We used some magazines, prints of letters, collages and foliage! Unbelievable how much buttons pins can Czech students make when they once learn how to do it! Thanks to Leonardo we knew what we want to have at our school, too.
In our free time we walked in the city, we saw the ocean and visited some galleries. So, during all days in Porto we tried to understand how work our Portuguese colleagues, how they perceive art and in the evenings we went for dinners and we talked about all we have experienced. The last evening in Porto we spent together with teachers and students.
This week was full of interesting experience, lovely faces, good mood, discoveries, possibilities to bring something new in our life and great experiences. It is not easy to forget and we will remember Porto where art lives, too, people we have met there and experience we gained.
It was great. It was our true story in art.
see more pictures and photos HERE
