Connection between product value and product price, co-creation and co-design, gathering new materials to renew ones’ work, intercepting new clients and collaborations such as cooperatives and schools
Increased awareness about waste production and its creative potential.
Enhanced collaboration between artists, enterprises, or schools.
Finding innovative solutions involving art and didactics.
Empowering sustainable practices in artworking.
Exploring new possibilities beyond traditional artistic creation.
Incorporating elements of gamification into their creative processes.
Spreading a more socially and ecologically conscious message into one’s creative process.
The facilitator can research the nature of unstructured materials and the pedagogy of “loose parts” and open-ended materials.
Waste production mapping, enterprises and social stakeholders identification, identifying potential clients working with art and didactics interested in environmental issues
- Step 1: Introduction and Scenario – Explain the scenario and purpose of the role-play workshop, which is to create one or more game proposals for a school or cooperative using only serially produced objects.
- Step 2: Material Exploration and Group Setting – Divide participants into pairs and provide each pair with a specific number of serially recovered materials. For instance, one group may work on buttons, another group on pieces of fabric, and one on pieces of wood. Allow the groups enough time to explore the physical characteristics of the materials, such as plasticity, transparency, hardness, and flexibility, focusing on sensory aspects. Based on this initial analysis, participants can form an idea of the target audience to whom the proposals can be offered.
- Step 3: Proposal Creation and Activity Sheet – Give each group 30 minutes to create either a game with functioning rules or two activity proposals using the materials provided. Provide them with an activity sheet to describe the different elements of the activities, such as target audience, age, objectives, and so on. Emphasize to participants that they must not permanently modify or assemble the materials during the activities. The materials need to be “loosened” after use and returned to their initial state to be useful for another play.
- Step 4: Plenary Sharing and Open Discussion – Have each group share their proposals with the rest of the participants, followed by a debate on the playability of each proposal.
- Step 5: Collective Reflection and Comparisons – Open a collective reflection on the differences between an assembled work and a kit. Ask participants if anyone has ever played with an artistic kit. Compile the pros and cons of the two creative processes – Assembly vs. Loose Parts Kit – on a large sheet.
Loose Parts Theory in didactics and creative processes:
[Community Playthings – Loose Parts] (https://www.communityplaythings.com/resources/articles/2018/loose-parts)
[Inspired EC – Loose Parts Play] (https://www.inspiredec.com/blogs/inspired-ec-blog/what-are-loose-parts)
[Natural Learning – Loose Parts Theory] (https://www.naturallearning.org/loose-parts)
[The Play and Learning Environment – Loose Parts] (https://www.playlearningenvironment.org/loose-parts)
[The Art of Education University – Loose Parts in the Art Room] (https://theartofeducation.edu/2019/02/27/loose-parts-in-the-art-room/)
Loose parts or unstructured materials can be either natural or manufactured. These materials are everyday objects that can be manipulated and used in many different ways. They can be moved, carried, shared, combined, and taken apart in various configurations and designs. Loose parts are also known as “open-ended materials”. Some examples of loose parts include buttons, pebbles, wood scraps, bottle caps, shells, ribbons, and so on. It is important to provide a large quantity of each material to encourage creativity and exploration.
This activity can be done either at home, in a workshop room, or even outdoors if natural elements are collected beforehand. Another option is to ask participants to bring various scrap materials from home, like bottle caps or buttons.
Any person can participate; the audience can also be mixed, with different abilities and skills.