Making Culture Young People s Kimono Making Workshop Introduction Using materials and techniques drawn from the ones used in ancient times, young participators can make their own kimonos by making origami, printing and freestyle drawing. At the same time, they are can embrace art from the other community and learn about cross curriculum knowledge like culture, philosophy, aesthetics and nature. This workshop also encourages them to think, be more inquisitive, explore storytelling skill and express themselves artistically in a fun and visual way. The Making Culture workshop has been facilitated in afterschool clubs and art centers for evaluation and development. It is a major part of University of Dundee 2010 master project that aims to explore traditional crafts 21 century relevance.
About Kimono Kimono is a traditional Japanese garment that made from a single rectangle cloth without waste, perfectly fits all sizes and suits people from different gender and age groups. The simple and classic structure lent it to various decorative style and technology. Their patterns are never arbitrary or only for decoration but deeply meaningful, varying according to the age of the wearer, season, occasion, etc. Kimono is more than a piece of clothing. It serves as canvas for artistic expression and storytelling. People in ancient Japan delicately made kimono to explore the relation between human and nature, the change of time, color of seasons, beauty in everyday life and peace in mind and soul. The Making Culture workshop creates an environment for young people to make kimonos of their own whilst feel the concreteness of material and experience various art and craft technique. Left: Michael (10) mixes paint to create color to print on his animal planet theme kimono with stencils and stamps. Using these techniques to create patterns has been used in Japan since 600 years ago.
Workshop process Warm-up section The workshop started by teaching participators making mini origami kimono using various types of paper (including Japanese Yuzen paper, which has the same pattern and uses the similar printing technique as in kimono textile production). This section enables participators to understand the basic knowledge and nature of kimono. By comparing the two kimonos here (one with Japanese textile & one with Scottish tartan pattern), the children in previous workshop were able to identify one of the most distinguishing features of the Japanese pattern usually free and asymmetric, and often umpire of elements of nature, especially plants. Step 1 First, the participator need create a life size origami kimono. (Material needed: a piece of paper 75X200 cm) Step 2: Then it is time to make the background. The kimono is a garment with a very basic shape, it serves as a canvas for artistic expression. To explore this concept, the participators need to decide on a theme and background tone for their kimono. (Material needed: paint, roller) Right: Calum(10) wanted to make a kimono of magic underwater world and chose blue as background.
Step 3: The next step is the decoration of the kimono. The participator can choose stencils and stamps depicting patterns which they thought represented the theme and printed them with rollers, draw with brushes or use whatever techniques they can imagine. (Material needed: paint; roller; brushes; pen; stencils; stamps. The stencils and stamps made for the workshop cover various themes. Some motifs are based on traditional designs that were used for making Japanese family crests which are known as Kamon. These motifs include clothing, food, shelter, transportation, sports, and most importantly, nature. By playing with these patterns, the children could have a glimpse of the exotic culture from a country hundreds of years ago. Left: Besides drawing and printing, the participators can also write the story they want to tell on the kimono. In Calum s story, he is a genius mad scientist who created an underwater world of bizarre creatures.
Finished! The way Calum used the stencil is very creative: he put a pig stencil and a shark stencil together to create what he called park - a hybrid breed. The same creation includes: Fish + giraffe= firaffe House + squid = housquitd
The Value The special thing about this workshop is that it uses garment as media, which is familiar and approachable to young people. The whole process is visual and interactive, which is easier for even children with expression and linguistic difficulties to exercise story telling skills. Craft participation offers them the opportunity to work with and learn through materials by making objects with meaning and permanence. The showcase of the works will not only enhance the participators selfconfidence and encourage freedom of expression, but also enable the visitors view the sparkles of imagination, creativity and intuition created by young people.