Background
The reason I joined the American University of Yangon in 2016 and later taught there for five years was because of their offering: general education through interdisciplinary learning. Modules included were from the humanities and social sciences, science and technology, and arts, media and communication (details can be found here). I thought this was ‘right’ for the students considering universities in Burma were shut down for many years (late 1980s through the early 2000s) depriving students of general/outside knowledge. Universities only reopened in 2015 under reform.
Yet, through teaching and conversations with students, I learned that they were interested in design. In my class alone, of about 30 students, a third said they were interested. The school unfortunately did not offer design education. Nor were there many design schools (decent ones with international standards of education). The ones that did offer design education were either limited in discipline offerings (graphic, fashion) or, to my understanding, the government universities–supposedly better than the private ones–were outdated and limited in curriculum. I learned further that many youths wanted to pursue design fields but were stifled by societal/parental expectations who wanted their children to pursue traditional academic disciplines. Engineering, medicine, law, accounting, so I was told. So it seemed that while Myanmar is celebrated worldwide for its art and artists, its design scene was pathetic.
So I decided to do something–with every bit of effort I could gather and expend as an educator, even though I was well aware of my limited capacity and the risk involved. I’m glad that all efforts eventually paid off. The students’ needs were the catalyst of what I was planning to do.
Starting creative workshops, exploring collage making to discover self and expression
I proposed to organise creative workshops as part of the university-wide summer leadership programs. It got through, and the next thing on plan was what creative workshops.
I looked back on my own experiences with design to see what could be borrowed. I recalled attending an exhibition and talk back in 2015 when father-and-son architects Takeo Muraji and Yutaro Muraji were in Singapore. Their work had left a deep impression on me. For senior Muraji-san, he approaches architecture using collages. He would get clients to make collages informed by their subconscious desires. Muraji-san then translates what he sees on collages into architectural design.
This collage making method intrigued me as much as it fascinated. It was not just about creating design output, but it was about uncovering the layers of a person’s deep desires and identity and translating them into something visible and tangible. It was psychoanalytical. I was reminded of Freud, of Carl Jung’s theories of the unconscious mind and the power of symbolic expression. Jung believed that art, dreams, and symbols could reveal things in the psyche that words alone could not. So in a way, Muraji-san’s collages–made up of shapes, colours, patterns, and all kinds of symbols, etc., were the reflection of Jung–a way to access the unconscious and bring things from the latency levels up to the surface.
So I decided to adapt Muraji-san’s collage making technique for my workshops, but with a different goal in mind: to use it as a tool for self-discovery and creative expression. I gave the students magazines, newspapers, and other materials and asked them to create collages that reflected their thoughts, preferences, and aspirations. I later got them to present their images to the rest of their classmates. As students shared, it was apparent that students were beginning to uncover aspects of themselves they they hadn’t once known about themselves. Some discovered a love for structure and organisation, others chaos and mess. Some works reflected a certain uptightness, others a carefree style. For many of them, the act of translating thoughts to art work was liberating. They saw a product not just outside of their minds, but of themselves. I sensed and hoped the students found the process revelatory. I wish there was more workshop time for reflection and sharing; I wanted to know how they truly felt about what they had just done.
Some end notes
The workshops are not intended to make my students into designers, but to give them the tools to explore self-awareness/discovery, to gain a deeper understanding of themselves. Through collage making, the students were able to express themselves more symbolically, as they tapped into their unconscious mind in ways that verbal communication couldn’t/wouldn’t achieve. The students were also able to discover hidden traits and preferences, gaining insights into their own identity and creative potential. More importantly, this activity would give them creative confidence, as they could see how ideas could take shape in a tangible form. And finally through presentation sharing, they were able to reflect and engage in discussions about each other’s work.
One of the most rewarding aspects perhaps of the workshops was seeing students realise that creativity is not a fixed trait. It’s a skill that could be learned, nurtured and developed. For some of them, the workshops affirmed their interest in pursuing design fields, for others it was an opportunity to explore another side to themselves.
If this workshop is anything to go by, it only reinforced my continued belief in integral approaches, in this case in terms of disciplines. What I tried to do was to bring underpinnings from psychology into education, so that I could create experiences that fostered creativity, self-awareness and growth. Collage making, inspired by Muraji-san, rooted in Jungian theories, was my experiment of applied learning. It also served to remind me that creativity is a universal human capacity that could be unlocked using a range of tools, methods, and theories available.
