On the occasion of welcoming the new year, people decorate various cedar trees to celebrate. However after the celebration, most of the decorations are discarded as garbage.
On Dec. 26th, 35 junior and high school students from SUIS Qingpu, led by art teachers, went to Yuz Museum to participate in the art installation activity of “Sustainability Day, Plant Silver Cedar Trees”. The students used recyclable beverage cartons to “plant” recyclable trees.
The students cut and cleaned the discarded beverage boxes, and used the silver aluminum foil inside as unique art materials. After various creative folding and splicing, pieces of “leaves” were made. May the children “plant” the concept of sustainability into their hearts through this meaningful activity.
The art works will be exhibited at Yuz Museum from December 26th to 31st. After the exhibition, a professional recycling team will recycle the “trees”.
There are always many waste items in daily life. Students are encouraged to try to recycle these items, which not only plays a role in environmental protection, but also turns waste into treasure. Recycling of waste is one of the important ways of contemporary art, which provides effective practical methods for students to enhance their sense of social responsibility, enhance their pioneering power and cultivate artistic creativity. In the special journey of “Planting a Silver Cedar Tree”, the discarded milk cartons were turned into pieces of silver leaves, and finally become”cedar trees”. In this activity, students learned to use recyclables to create more interesting installation art works and give them meaning. When special materials are used for interpretation, these fragmented objects are alive again.
Art Teacher Ms. Lori Liu
Changing locations away from the school campus can also be an important change that give that little edge to a memory to keep it permanent. If we had made these trees in class, the memory would jostle around with all the other class creations and just become one more indiscernible notch in the fabric of memories that are an education. This makes sense. A change of location provides intrinsic differences of not only the environment, but the feel of an experience. The location provides its own contrast to be emblazoned onto a memory. The wonderful thing about this is many of the ideas learned at the unique location will also become a permanent part of the experience. And this is especially true for the YUZ Museum. It was quite a unique place; both it’s architecture and the progressive, yet whimsical art that it houses. I wish our students had more of an opportunity to explore the exhibits.
Art Teacher Mr. Jesse English
Students’ Words
Like many classmates, I buy items that I want in a less controlled manner, and I hardly think about: After these items are used, what kind of damage will they bring to the earth. After experiencing this activity, I especially want to be a student of environmental protection practice: in my future life, I only buy what I need, not what I want, and pay more attention to how to recycle, and use the waste to create art works.
7A Sophie Shi
My classmates and I worked together to make a silver cedar tree out of waste milk boxes. In life, we also need to use waste and care for the environment.
6B Ted Li
Environmental protection and art can complement each other. Two weeks before the activity, we collected used paper beverage boxes on campus. Last Saturday we used these “waste materials” to make unique cedar trees. The paper made from trees is finally made into more special trees in the form of art. This is a cycle. This event also gave me more ideas about environmental protection in my future life.
G10 Rebecca Zhao