SAISA Art 2019

SAISA Art 2019 was hosted by the Overseas School of Colombo. Ms. Morgan had planned out our awesome SAISA Art for this year and it was incredible. She had made us a clear and helpful time table to keep all of us on track. I will be adding pictures and my thoughts in the table so it’s thoroughly organized.

Thursday

Date	Event	Location
Thursday Feb 21	Evening arrivals for most schools. Pick up for host families at OSC, time to be announced. *Dinner with host family	Canteen pick-up for host families.
Pick Ups	3:30 for all students from Bombay, Lincoln, Chennai 4:00 for teachers 7:00 pm for students from Dhaka 7:15 for teachers from Dhaka	PLEASE See at the bottom of schedule for HOSTING Info!

I was hosting 2 students for the first time and it was an interesting experience. We got to know each other on the first day and talked about our schools and what we were planning to make on the last day. We were all excited to go to the places on the next day because were going to visit many places that even I had not been too. There was no one from y grade participating so I had to step out of my comfort zone and collaborate with new people and through this I got to meet new people from other schools and my school as well. I did most of my socializing on the first day of SAISA Art.

Friday

Friday Feb 22	Breakfast at host family’s house. 7:20 Arrival directly to Auditorium	OSC Campus
7:30	Welcome and SAISA Art Opening Lighting of the lamp. Welcome dance from Primary Dance Troupe Dance Performance by group from Kandy. Lighting of the lamp. Brief introductions of visiting artists. Welcome by Claire McQuillan The dance performance was very beautiful. It was well choreographed and it showed the international students Sri Lanka’s culture which was also new for me and I think a lot of students and teachers appreciated this since it was so welcoming. Some pictures of the opening ceremony is shown below. These pictures were taken my GeckoNet. Primary students also had a very cute dance performance, they had some technical difficulties in the beginning however they were able to handle it very professionally.	Auditorium
8:00	Break in to cohort groups. Get on Bus for Kelaniya Temple. Wear t-shirt.	Parking lot by canteen
8:15	In cohort groups, get on to buses for excursions in and around Colombo	Front parking lot
9:00	Arrival at Kelaniya Temple: Small Tour and hour sketching and idea gathering. We were all very excited to go around the temple. I enjoyed this place the best in the entire trip because I got to be alone and explore and draw whatever I desired without having to be disturbed. It was a peaceful walk and I took more picture from my camera because we didn’t have a lot of time to do good drawings. So I decided to take a lot of picture and them draw whatever I liked later during the day where we had more time. Towards to end, Kevinja and I partnered up and walked around the temple together. We went inside and here are some picture I took:	Kelaniya Temple
10:00	First Group to Barefoot (45 minute drive)   (Bus 1,2 and OSC Van)	Barefoot
10:15	Second Group to Barefoot (Bus 3 and 4)	Barefoot
11:00	Arrival First Group to Barefoot Barefoot was alright, it was almost like a break. It was a place where tourists would go so Kevinja and I just sat on a table and decided to draw. We also got some drinks:
11:15	Second group arrival to barefoot
11:45	First Group to Park Street Mews (Bus 1,2 and OSC Van)	Park Street Mews Cafe
12:00	Second Group to Park Street Mews
12:30	LUNCH at Park Street Mews Cafe Group Greeting and Group Phot o in front of Mural. I could not find 1 picture where everyone looked at the camera, this was the best one. We were all happily fed and energized for our next stop.
1:30	All buses back to Pelawatte to Sakya Temple.	Sakya Light of Asia Center
2:15	Team Discussion: Team building activity, second photo and Sketching inside of the Sakya Temple. We got to draw more here and I also took some pictures at this location:	Sakya Light of Asia Center
4:00	Bus back to OSC for early dinner and Gecko Factor. There is a small clip of Gecko Factor in the Video provided above. I am part of the SGA so I was in charge of calling people in and helping them go on the stage to perform on time. Rashmi and I are class reps in the SGA and we both handled this and made sure all the performs went on to the stage on time.
4:20	Dinner at school. Traditional Sri Lankan Meal	Canteen
5:00	Gecko Factor OSC Talent Show	Auditorium
6:00	Host family pick up	Front Steps of School or other agreed upon location.

We were all tired so we went home and slept. However, on the way home I went through the pictures I had taken that day and formulated a rough plan on what I wanted to include in my final piece. I knew that we were going to get something map related because we were in the mixed media workshop and the head specialized is including maps in a creative way in his art.

Saturday

8:00 -8:15	Autobiography Share (three-five minutes by Lalith) Introduction to the day. Break out and go to Classrooms. Our workshop was held in Ms. Morgan room, the normal Visual Arts Class for me, therefore it was a comfortable environment for me.	Auditorium
8:20 -9:30	Hands on Demonstration by Artist Guide (10 minutes). Idea development and Plan for Exhibit Piece.	C33,34,35, SMPR, PMPR. PLEASE see below for Classroom details for cohorts.
9:30-10:00	Break and Snack: Veggie Samosa and Cake and fruit	Canteen
10:00 -12:00	Workshop and Begin Pieces	Various Classrooms at OSC
12:00-1:00	Lunch Vegetarian Wraps, Steamed Vegetables, French Fries	Canteen
1:00 -4:00	Workshop	Various Classrooms at OSC
4:10	Pick up by Host Family/Dinner at home

 

Sunday

9:00	Meet on Field for quick photo before heading to classes.
9:05 -12:00	Workshop, Finishing Pieces	Various Classrooms
12:00 12:40	Lunch Pasta with vegetables and cream sauce, Greek Salad , mini pizza.	Canteen
12:40- 1:30	Refining and Final Touches	Various Classroom
2:00	All pieces to hang for Exhibit	Auditorium
2:05	Pieces for Collaborative Mural and Tokens for SAISA Art Reflection and Peer Critique, Collaborative Walk Around Group Photo 3 On Stairway in Auditorium 3:50	PMPR and SMPR
4:00- 4:45	Art Exhibit Opening for Entire Community (Hilton Residences) Appetizers MENU: Marinated vegetables & Parmesan on focaccia Variety of Maki Rolls Homemade tomatoes with feta crumble Polenta and Pear and blue cheese Mini fresh fruit tarts	Auditorium
5:00	Thank You to Visiting Artists! Group Photo 3	Auditorium
5:00	Completion of SAISA Art 2019

Again, the timetable created by Ms. Morgan was very helpful for all of us SAISA Art participants, it really helped us stay on track and manage our time while creating our art piece. Since I had looked upon this timetable so frequently during the event, it seemed appropriate to structure my CAS post using this since everything followed around the schedule.

Learning outcomes:

• 1 of the major things I learned it art was how to incorporate my mistakes into my art piece. I like my pieces to be perfect so this was quite challenging however it really helped me expand my knowledge and skills in different ways through our workshop. I had stepped on my art work by mistake, and through the supervisor’s guidance, I learnt how to make it part of my work. I stepped on different areas a couple of times and it created a cool pattern since the sole of the shoe had patterns.
• I was able to recognize my weakness and strengths in visual arts when I could see I was struggling.
• Although I love and enjoy working alone, with so many people around I was able to communicate and interact with them.
• Since I was working on my project individually, I was able to initiate and plan what I had wanted to do on the first day in the workshop. Since we were limited by time, I had to plan accordingly and proceed with it.
• Trying new things in the workshop was challenging but it really helped me develop new skills which I can use in Visual Arts in the future.
• I was also able to apply my prior knowledge and skills I had gained in visual arts in my plan and art piece which helped me complete my piece on time.
• I could definitely improve on my time management and develop more skills through practice.

Here is a video showing a visual representation of the 3 days of SAISA Art 2019:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knkCgfp4aTs&t=37s