Professional Masters in Education
Amy Kenny
Irish Superstitions - Visual Narrative that exists within the expression of Irish sayings
This unit was undertaken with a group of 2nd year students, from St. Cuans College, Co. Galway. The aim of this unit was to creatively challenge students to promote inquiry into the beauty of storytelling and Irish superstitions. Superstitions our subject matter, a cliché of good/bad luck stories have existed aurally for generations. This unit sought the creative potential to challenge students to bring x3 of their most exciting superstitions into a new visual narrative, capturing these superstitions digitally, using stop motion animation techniques. Inspired by the amazing folklore artist Michael Fortune, students considered the qualities and techniques he uses to capture a story through the use of educationally friendly applications such as in-shot and stop motion. The qualities of the criteria in this project were distributed evenly across the three strands of Art, Craft and Design. Mirroring the structure of a designer’s process, students advanced from initial research ideas, into story boards and onto considering recycled materials for prompts. focusing on tedious craftsmanship, learning that the nature of creating minimal prompts of greater attention to detail is far more visually interesting. There is something so pure, watching ideas translate from 2D to 3D. By learning to script, design and direct their own narratives, this project exposes students to a means of researching, articulating and expressing creative solutions into visually comprehendible outcomes.