Differences activity

DIFFERENCES ACTIVITY

Key Ideas:

By focusing on differences between two art works surprising things can be noticed.

No two people see and perceive things in the same way.

[This activity is somewhat like the similarities search and also involves a

comparison but it works differently enough so that you could do both activities]

How to Do the Activity:

1. Select a gallery or space with about 10 art works

2. Have students go around the space with the job of selecting two works of art that are the most different

3. Once all students have made selections review all the pairs with the group—just noting which two works were selected by each student

4. Then select one student’s pair and have the student tell why they chose these two works as the most different

5. Try to get through at least 3 pairs of works

6. Help students, through discussion, see the variations in differences: some may be based on size, or color, or medium, or who knows what. Students will surprise you!

Helpful Hints:

Pick a particularly odd pair of differences yourself—in contrast to the basis of the students’ differences—maybe do human and non-human, or feels good to me and feels bad to me, be creative

Do a second set of differences choices but have students ONLY focus on one aspect of art: like color, or medium, or light and dark