Tools and methods

Herbarium

When it is useful

These workshops, designed for classes in neighbourhood schools, focus on the relationship with nature and are intended to provide guidance and knowledge for designers of green areas such as parks and squares. In the Danish town of Guldborgsund, they took the form of several months of working with children and teachers from a school adjacent to the newly planned public space Frihed (Danish: Freedom). During the workshops, the students created posters about the plants they had chosen, researched the nature on site, learned different techniques for depicting plants and jointly created a herbarium and postcards encouraging one to explore their personal relationships with plants. The results of their work were given to the architects designing Frihed as inspiration.

Herbarium

Step by step instruction

  • Ask schools in the neighbourhood to cooperate with you – try to involve art teachers as well as biology and nature teachers.
  • Invite people who emphasise the relationship with nature in their artistic work to lead the workshop.
  • The workshop can be a one-off event or a longer creative collaboration.
  • During the workshop, students choose plants that represent or inspire them, or connect with their memories. Each person presents the plant on a poster, justifying the choice.
  • Combine the posters in a smaller scale to create a collective ‘herbarium’ with representations of the selected plants and stories from the workshop participants.
  • Create postcards with questions about plants which the participants would like to ask the adults, e.g. ‘What plant do you remember from your childhood?’
  • Present your work at an exhibition or publish the herbarium as a book/album.

    Data obtained by cookies and similar technologies serves to help us improve the website and make sure our readers get the content they want thanks to the use of statistics. If you do not agree to your data being processed, please make sure to change your browser settings. If you have any questions regarding our policies on data processing, please feel free to contact us at iodo@ikm.gda.pl

    Close