Short Course Review「The Order of Nature: Geometry and Patterns」

In the morning of October 14, 2019, the Opening Ceremony of the second school year was hosted at the main hall of the historical house of the Peng’s Family in the old town of Suzhou. The traditional Confucius Ritual was conducted under the China Centre board director Mr Johnson Chang and Ye Fang, and participated by all the one-year students and staff of the Centre.

Delfina Bottesini, out-reach and open program manager of The School welcomed the students one day before on October 13 by giving an introductory session  on the pedagogy of The School, the Western Courses and tutors, as well as the overall structure of the courses in Suzhou, which differentiate it from courses in other PSTA centre in the world. Johnson Chang joined Delfina by introducing the Chinese traditional art courses specially designed for the one-year program, the themes and contents, the masters and tutors, as well as the ideas of how the Western and Chinese courses go together. Both of them encourage the one-year students to make full efforts in the upcoming rich and intensive one year. The staff of China Centre met the students on the same day and introduced to them the usage and regulation of Yuan Centre.

The first module is a two-week course of The Order of Nature: Geometry and Patterns, taught by Delfina. 

The course led to a fruitful end of the module on October 25 2019.Five one-year students, along with three short course students practiced what they learnt through working out three pieces of works, from the basic pattern creation, to finding proper color compositions and create a work based on the traditional Chinese window pattern provided by the tutor.

“I was trained in art, but I have never learnt to work on colors in a given selection. But later on I figured that this was particularly useful for me to understand colors and using traditional colors to create contemporary works. In my third work, I decided to chose the colors from the Forbidden City and I am still working on it.

I learnt some Ayurveda earlier and I found the philosophical ideas of Geometry find its resonance in other civilizations like India. ”

- Zou Tianyu, one-year student

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