The art teacher at Harvie Elementary, Jordan Flower, has transformed the hallways into a street art exhibit. The students in multiple grade levels have been learning about Street Art. Street Art is usually viewed as destructive and “underground”. However, if you look closely at the work that street artists create, and not so much where it is created, it’s clear that it is art. At last years Oscars, a street artist named Banksy was receiving a lot of attention because of his role in the nominated film Exit Through the Gift Shop. The film took you on secretive missions to create works on nontraditional canvases around the world.[1. I have watched it 3 times from start to finish.] The students at Harvie are all familiar with street art and graffiti in their communities. Jordan led them through discussions about art vs. vandalism and the effects, both positive and negative, that can come from street art.
The students at Harvie learned about a couple of different artists and styles, this was a unit studied in Kindergarten through 5th grade. The 4th graders learned about the art of Kenny Random. The 4th graders planned and executed a collaborative art piece, based on the work of Kenny Random, that can be found covering the walls of the school. Other pieces of art include arrows based on the work of Above, and a display of graffiti style “tags” of the student’s names. Below are some images of the pieces around the school as well as Jordan’s lesson plan for the Henrico21 Kenny Random project with 4th grade.
Download the Henrico 21 Lesson Plan
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