Under the project Cultural Transfusion, we have designed a training module on using art in youth work to create a space where multiple interpretations and expressions of human emotions emerge and intersect. While designing the module, our goal was to create interactive workshop learning activities through experiential learning using Edvard Munch’s paintings. Whereas our objective was to develop learning activities that can open up dialogues and provoke reflections on Edvard Munch’s artworks to facilitate young people initiate different conversations to express, interact with their emotions.

To design the module, we conducted research at The Munch Museum that has an extensive collection of Munch's art in the form of paintings, print, drawings, photographs, and sculptures. Edvard Munch Infinite Collection takes viewers on a unique journey through the arts and mind of Edvard Munch. It provides a unique opportunity to engage with themes and motifs that Munch explored in his attempts to depict the tales of anxiety, death, love, and loneliness, which we all have in common. Hence, our module invites young people to discover and rediscover Munch paintings as a means to perceive and interact with their emotions through an artistic, non-formal, and participatory approach.

In our context, Munch paintings are used to help participants visualise human emotions and connections, in order to address emotions of detachment, love, depression, loneliness, etc. Whereas non-formal education and participatory approach emphasise the lived experiences and active participation of young people in exploring their emotions and connections with others. Our method is based on active listening and experiential learning: valuing the meaningful participation of the participants through workshops; what they see, how they interpret and describe the paintings; and how they relate to them to propose new contemporary narratives from Munch’s modern artworks. Learn more !