ArtsNet Minnesota: Inner Worlds: Yves Tanguy: Student Links

I started the project by taking my student to the Minneapolis Institute of Art. We looked around the museum, paying close attention to two paintings by Yves Tanguy and one by Salvador Dali, as well as other surrealists.

We talked about dreams and how they may differ drastically from the real world we live in. As we moved around the museum looking at art from many different countries, he asked, "what do these people dream about?" What a great jumping off point; I didn't have to bring up the point of other cultures and their dreams.

I told him I didn't know what other people dream about, just as he doesn't know what I dream about. We talked about how some cultures take their dreams very seriously. They make symbols that may appear in their dreams and try to understand what the symbols mean. This conversation went on for a while.

Later, each of us painted a dream we had. He told me he wasn't sure what the symbols in his dream were about, but thought critically about it. Then I explained what I thought my dream was about. We both had a great time doing this project.

Museum Extension: Now that you have expanded our point of view—make another visit to the painting and revisit the first conversation!

Mentor: Rebecca Franzen—Bemidji State University Elementary Education student