Exploring art and creativity in Barcelona

Blog post by Liisa Häkkinen, resource teacher in the Literacy Phase at Helsingin aikuisopiston peruskoulu

In July, I took part in an Erasmus+ course in Barcelona called Art, Music and Dance Therapy for an Inclusive Classroom. The course was organised by europass Teacher Academy. The aim was to approach art and creativity in many different ways and to learn about their proven positive effects on learning and critical thinking, which can also be used in teaching. The course was wonderful, and it was very well organised.

In front of a work by Picasso at the National Art Museum of Catalonia.

Barcelona

I was a little nervous about Barcelona in July. One of the most popular tourist destinations in Europe and the whole world at the peak of the season. Medieval streets turned into ovens by the sun, with stone walls that I knew would breathe hot air onto the red, sweaty necks of the tourist crowds. I also imagined an endless wall of tourists on the streets of the city centre. It did not sound very tempting. But I already knew Barcelona very well, so I decided to avoid the busiest sights and the areas around them.

The gods were kind, however. Spanish TV channels were warning about heatwaves, temperatures in Valencia rose to 45 degrees and in Córdoba in Andalusia to 43 degrees, but Barcelona was surrounded by a sweet and pleasant warmth that did not go above 30 degrees. In the evenings, the sun dived into the blue Mediterranean, and the warmth turned into humid air that felt like velvet and silk on the skin. I also stayed far away from the tourist crowds in Poblenou, a district where local people live, and the times I walked through the warm, stony medieval alleys were very pleasant.

In many ways, Barcelona is an ideal city for art. Unlike most of southern Europe, the atmosphere looks to the future and is innovative. At the same time, the attitude is Mediterranean, bohemian and open to art, and I find this mix very fascinating and inspiring. Catalan modernist architecture, for example, shows well how fantasy and imagination have become part of everyday life in the city. This kind of tolerance and positive attitude to creativity, and even to the craziest ideas, is unique in many ways. That is why studying and focusing on creativity and art in Barcelona of all places felt wonderful to me from the start.

The Teacher Academy

The Teacher Academy was right in the city centre, with good transport connections, in an old and beautiful apartment building. The building had once been home to upper-class families. As a reminder of this, it had an old, creaking lift, many half floors and mezzanines decorated with wonderful frescoes and carvings, narrow classrooms with very high ceilings, and narrow, maze-like corridors with beautiful mosaic floors. The whole building felt homely. Over time, the floors had also changed and become uneven, and a member of the Teacher Academy staff told us that this kind of mosaic pattern is typical of Catalan houses. The floors looked a little worn, because they could only be cleaned with special cleaning products, and now students from different countries filled them. In the corridors, you could hear Catalan, Spanish, Italian, Greek, English and other languages mixing into a lovely soundscape, and I immediately felt at home. During my course, Spain also won the European Football Championship. On the night of the final, thousands of people crowded into the city centre. A huge screen had been put up in the main square, Plaça Catalunya, to watch the final, and the best spots were taken hours before the match started. Bars and restaurants were completely full, and after the win, fireworks went off all over Barcelona and the nearby towns. But the win did not touch everyone. Catalans do not see themselves as Spanish, and for example the Poblenou district was quiet like other Catalan neighbourhoods. People did not celebrate in the streets like in many other Spanish cities. Still, it was unique and amazing to be on the Iberian Peninsula at that very moment, to be part of it and feel an atmosphere that you could almost touch.

Art and trips

Our course was divided into two groups so that the groups would stay small and communication and shared projects would go easily and naturally. I was the only Finn on the course. The other participants came from Italy, Austria, Hungary and Poland. Our course leader, Paula, was from Argentina. From the very beginning, we had a great, encouraging and positive team spirit, and all the participants were nice and empathetic. Everyone taught different things, but I was the only one who worked in basic education for adults and with immigrants. Our workplace and the Finnish education system raised a lot of interest and also admiration. At the start, each of us gave a presentation about our work. In the rational Finnish way, I had focused on presenting our work, just as the task said, while the Italians presented, for example, Italian food. The lovely ladies from Bari, in the heel of Italy, told us about local pasta dishes, and I then got to tell them, on the spot, how in Finland everyone’s right means you can pick blueberries even in the President’s garden.

We also went on interesting trips. On the second day of the course, we went to the National Art Museum of Catalonia (MNAC), which I already knew. In the first exercise, Paula showed us some works of art. In front of them, we looked at the thoughts and images that came to mind and the stories we tell ourselves based on the pictures. Then she challenged us to think differently and question our possible prejudices and ideas by asking questions or revealing surprising facts about the paintings. This was an interesting way to look at the stories we tell ourselves without noticing, to challenge our views and to open our thinking towards creative solutions and ideas.

One example is a painting of a naked woman lying on a divan, posed as an object to be looked at, as if waiting for the painter (or a client) to come to her. Would our thoughts about the situation change if we knew that the painter was a woman? Or, as a more interesting and refreshing example, a painting of a working woman sitting in the street. Her head is bowed and buried in her lap, so the viewer only sees the back of her head and her dark hair. Her knees are bent, and she has wrapped her arms around them. Many people felt that the mood was sad and anxious. However, the woman in the painting was an Indigenous woman. In some Latin American countries, Indigenous people traditionally slept in this position during work breaks as recently as a hundred years ago.

The labyrinth park

Another interesting trip was to a labyrinth park. I was happy about this, because I had wanted to visit it for a long time. Parc del Laberint is in the Horta-Guinardó district, which has fewer tourists than any other district in Barcelona, apart from Gaudí’s park. The atmosphere was refreshing, and on the paths of the beautiful and romantic park we only met groups of schoolchildren speaking Catalan. According to ancient legend, the Minotaur was locked in a labyrinth. The story tells that Ariadne is looking for the Minotaur and is afraid of meeting the monster in the winding corridors. But in the middle of the labyrinth, a statue of Eros, the god of love, is waiting. Once you have found your way to love, you still have to choose the right path out.

At the heart of all conflict and chaos is love, the still eye of the storm, the possibility of change. Somewhere inside messy mental energy and tangled situations, a creative solution is hidden. In the endless corridors of the labyrinth, we tried to connect with that creative side, with intuitive knowledge and insight. To my own surprise, I was the first to solve the labyrinth and find the way out.

I told our course leader Paula, and she asked me to write about how many paths open up for us when we reach love. Some paths lead straight to a dead end. Others are a bit longer, but they still lead back to the starting point. Then at some point you find a path that is a bit easier, even though you cannot always see around the corner and not every turn feels hopeful or inviting. But that path is the one that finally leads away from conflict, away from the fear of the monster, and it is the only path that brings freedom. Interesting, isn’t it?

After we had solved the labyrinth, Paula stepped a little to the side and called us to her one by one. She had a box with a lid in her hand, and she told me she wanted to give me a present because I was the first to solve the labyrinth. Inside the box was a mirror, and on the lid was this poem by the Persian Sufi mystic and poet Jalal ad-Din Mohammad Balkhi Rumi.

Why art and creativity matter

Park visits and looking at paintings are of course lovely things for almost anyone, but what can all this give to teaching? After solving the labyrinth, we walked to a pond in the middle of a beautiful wooded clearing next to the park, where pink lotus flowers were blooming. There we did, for example, different mindfulness exercises. The purpose was not to calm us down after the labyrinth, but to try out exercises that can be used with groups of students. We explored methods and exercises that strengthen the group’s sense of belonging and also help students reach a state of flow, where learning and creative solutions can happen.

After the trip days, we really got into our studies. We looked, for example, at different scientific studies on the importance of creativity and art and their many positive effects. The value of art is not only in the healing power of beauty and in aesthetic experiences, although these are valuable and necessary for all of us. Creativity is a driving force that opens new doors, makes us think in new ways and leads to innovative solutions and insights. At the same time, creativity strengthens critical thinking skills. Art and creative work are paths to cross-curricular learning, and making art is an excellent way to strengthen self-knowledge and to get to know yourself in a new and deeper way. Art and art projects can support diverse groups well and, instead of experiences of difference that divide people, create positive situations and ideas that bring people together.

Art that opens doors

Art and creativity can open doors that our conscious mind, which wants to put things into words, cannot reach straight away. Yet new ideas, thoughts, solutions and possibilities flow through that door. I thought about how important it is to strengthen self-knowledge, especially for our students. For example, many of our students come from backgrounds where they have never thought about what they themselves like and why. Opening this door to self-knowledge can be very important for a person’s life choices. It is also good to remember that you do not have to be an artist, an art lover, skilled in making art or even someone who likes art to have meaningful and moving experiences in front of works of art. An experience through art can open things in us that help a creative insight or choice in a completely different area of life.

In front of the National Art Museum of Catalonia, climbing plants were in bloom, green parrots flew from the pine trees towards the sweet-smelling mimosas, and I stopped to listen to the cicadas chirping around us. Suddenly the sound filled the whole landscape, the sounds of the city of millions in front of me faded into the background, and I watched the light filtering through the leaves, making spotted, soothing shadows on the stone steps. Now the steps were no longer grey but patterned, and something in the familiar world was different, changed. Small experiences like this are possible for everyone. You do not need anything special to have a moving experience, even in a lesson. Sometimes change is a small creative path opening up, and you do not know what ocean it will lead to.

Finally

What I remember most from the course is meeting wonderful people and the healing and supportive power of a creative, positive, encouraging and empathetic atmosphere. Working in such an atmosphere felt easy, ideas came naturally, and the experimenting that is part of creativity, in other words making mistakes, was inspiring. It pushed us to develop instead of being a step we trip over. All in all, the course was wonderful, and even the exercises and crafts that seemed easy at first had a deeper and more thoughtful purpose, which became stronger and clearer during the course. You also do not always need to study something completely new to have inspiring and good experiences. The nice people on the course also inspired me to think about familiar things from new perspectives. Going over things I already knew, but hearing them from someone new, gave me new inspiration and new creative and artistic ideas.

A drawing task at the National Art Museum of Catalonia. Our course leader, Paula Rodriguez.

A narrow house in the Born district.

My sketch. I took part in a life drawing class.

Mosaic on the columns of the Palau de la Música Catalana.

The lovely Italians gave us friendship bracelets as a present.