Over recent postings I have mentioned a key resource I want to use for the materials I am putting together for use in the autistic classroom. It is a chimneypiece panel in an eighteenth-century room in Grove House at Roehampton, originally used as a dining room. The panel here in the picture looks quite striking: the figures are in relief so it is three dimensional. One can touch it. As people now walk into the room they don’t necessarily notice it at first, although I would say that its location – above a fireplace – would have ensured that it would have got noticed back in the eighteenth century, especially on cold London days. Thus its location would have helped make it a talking point for those who would have gathered in the room.
One thing I would like to do is hold sessions in the room,
where groups of people can experience the relief and respond to it. But I am
also planning on using it as inspiration for activities elsewhere. As can hopefully
be seen from the photo, it is a striking artefact in its own right – and one
activity I am wondering about involves creating a line drawing of the image
which people could colour in. This could be a group activity, where each person
takes one part of the image. For example, one person might colour in the woman
on the left, another the other woman while another might colour in the fruit
bowls. A further person could colour in the hillside that the woman on our left
is pointing to. Or – an activity could be to create models, for instance of the
fruit, or of the helmet on the bottom left of the panel, or of the club that
the man in the centre is holding.
So far, I have not said who any of the people represented
here are. One reason for this is as follows. As I mentioned in my previous
posting in relation to Grove and Park’s exploration of the materials that they
are presenting around the journey of Odysseus, it doesn’t necessarily matter if
those doing the activities have little, or no, knowledge of the stories. And while
it is beneficial – as Grove and Park discuss – to use the stories as an
opportunity to provide access to a shared cultural heritage, this is not
essential, especially when some users of the materials might find it difficult
if not impossible to understand the specifics of the stories. Indeed, one
challenge is around how to ensure that the materials I create can be accessible
to people with a range of abilities at communication.
Thus it could feasibly be the case that some users of the materials
will never get to know much if anything about the mythological stories – while others,
hopefully, will find experiencing the stories rewarding, and the introductions
to them provided here might potentially give a route into subsequent with classical
myths. Some users, meanwhile, might come to the material with an existing
knowledge of classical stories. As I discussed in a much earlier posting to
this blog, there is something about classical myth that especially seems to
engage autistic people. indeed, it was learning about this that prompted this
whole project, as I set out in this blog’s introductory blurb.
I am going to delay saying who the figures are for a further
reason. Recently, I took part in a set of workshops at Roehampton for a group
of Year 10 girls (aged 14-15), most of whom know little about classical myth. My
colleague Marta Gárcia had designed activities for them, who were divided into
teams of about eight people. These included activities relating to various
artefacts around the campus, and one was based around the chimneypiece panel. I
was in the room throughout the time when the girls were doing the activities to
welcome them and talk about the panel. When I began by saying something about
the mythological figure being represented, what they noticed was focused around
this male figure. But when the girls had started to look at the panel first,
their attention was drawn to other things going on here. Indeed, what caught
their interest was not the man in the middle at all - the two women. And rather
than thinking about how he is responding to them, they were interested in the opposite
thing - namely how they are responding to him, and competing for his attention.
What this has shown me in relation to my autism and
classical myth project is just how many things can be drawn from the panel,
irrespective of how much existing knowledge the viewer brings to it. Each time I
look at it, I am struck by some fresh thing. But my interest has always been
shaped by my awareness about the myth being represented. However, one could,
equally, focus on the women – for example on how their gestures and on how they
control the space around themselves. Another possibility would be to focus,
too, on the objects around them – such as the abundant fruit beside the woman
on our right.
I had originally through about whether to begin with an activity
around how the man comes to be between the two women. But I am now wondering
whether a starting point could be the panel itself, especially as there is potential
for developing activities around the more basic levels of communication – and one
could build from this to more advanced levels. For instance, a task could focus
on the fruit in the baskets – and this could be accompanied with pictures of
fruit, or models of fruit – which could be piled up in the baskets like they
are on the panel. The fruit could be touched; those in the group could be encouraged
to say key words relevant to the image – perhaps ‘hungry’, or ‘pretty’ – and they
could reach out and touch the fruit or perhaps pretend to eat it.
It has been an interesting activity for me to avoid saying
who the image is representing. And I am going to end by still rejecting the temptation
to reveal who he is and who the women might be. Reading some of the other
postings will disclose this information. I have written about the panel elsewhere
too, including here, where I focus my discussion around the identity of the three figures (let me know if you have difficulties accessing this document). There
is even a video of me talking about it with Classics Confidential. I take
advantage of any opportunity to talk about it…
More soon – when I plan to say more about the activities I am
considering.
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