Interactive Exhibition Project: Putting Together the Visual

The project Putting Together the Visual aims to stimulate the development of creative visual-spatial intelligence in the observer. The observer, the exhibition visitor, is helped to understand and analyze what they observe in a workshop designed to elicit creative results. The first step, seeing art, leads to a

workshop where participants deepen their understanding by assembling puzzles of images from the exhibition, allowing the participant to interact, experiment and develop visual – spatial intelligence.

Installation 

The installation consists of a wide, circular space in which 9 pieces of 60cms diameter each painted on both sides, (18 paintings) will be hung from the ceiling with invisible thread or placed on self-standing swivel poles. There is an interactive component: people walking around the installation. (see map and

image of the model) Six images of the exhibition will be scanned into 20 printed limited editions available for sale.

Workshop

After observing and interacting in the installation space, participants will be welcomed to work with puzzles of the observed images. Puzzles challenge the mental, physical, and perceptual skills of persons as they put together irregular pieces of an image. The use of puzzles can help develop visual-spatial skills such as visual discrimination, spatial reasoning, motor planning, attention to detail and visual memory Participants will not always have time available to assemble the puzzle in the exhibition area, so reproductions of puzzles will be available for sale.

Objective 

The project assumes that individuals possess nine intelligences among which the visual-spatial stands out and works to develop the visual-spatial intelligence that all people possess. Howard Gardner, Hobbs Professor of Cognition and Education at Harvard University, defined visual-spatial intelligence as the ability to create and imagine drawings in two or three dimensions. In addition, it is the ability to manage, understand and transform the different spaces. This type of intelligence makes it easy to remember objects, such as artwork, in the same way we remember words.

Artist's Statement

"My interests in the fine arts began in Cuba when I was a child. Initially, it was my father who influenced me in the development of artistic abilities, as well as in the visualization of reality and its spiritual dimension. Due to the knowledge acquired from him, I learned to make connections between self, material and spiritual realms.

"My commitment to the field of art was the driving force in the study of art history, education, and production using different media and technologies in the visual arts. In time, I discovered a large space with expanded dimensions for the expression of my visual and spiritual languages in an integrated manner - a language that expresses a state of harmony using colors, forms and textures". 

Marcos Carvajal