How Art Connects

While most pupils associate art with museums, concert halls and galleries, it can be found anywhere people express themselves: in the buildings where we live, learn and spend time as a community; in the books we read to entertain ourselves; and in the sounds we hear on the street. 

And just as art exists beyond merely hanging within marbled halls, approaches to art encompass a wide range of subjects, from math to science, including the natural world, which inspires and reflects artistic patterns and expressions.

Through the AramcoWorld Learning Center, educators can engage students in the subject of art in several ways by building a bridge to broaden their understanding of the topic and the world. 

Taking Art off Its Pedestal

Haider Ali is a multigenerational truck artist; the work is a family tradition he learned from his father. It has taken him—and his projects—all over the world, with a piece exhibited with the Smithsonian and others on people’s feet. Based in Karachi, Pakistan, Ali sees his work as “moving art that is on the road, so people see it in their everyday life,” he says through an interpreter.

“This is just a perception created that you have to go to a gallery or museum to see art,” says Ali. “The entire universe is art.”

To that end, Ali has painted sneakers, had his work appear in the Islamabad International Airport and even painted a private Cessna plane, which takes his art across the skies, he says. In the US, Ali worked with Art120, an educational art organization based in Chattanooga, Tennessee, to paint a truck that depicted the geography and history of the city.

The truck, still in use today as a mobile educational space, serves as a bridge, says Kathryn Warren, Art 120’s founder. While it represents an expression of art that highlights Pakistani culture and Muslim traditions for the community, the truck also works as an entry point for talking about art with students. 

Warren hopes that students will shed their assumptions of what art needs to be and challenge themselves to create, whether it be a painted truck, a photograph or a skateboard design.

“Art isn’t supposed to be in a museum in a gilded frame,” says Warren. “It’s in the street. It’s with everybody taking that chance to create and find a medium that works for you.”

Making Connections to the World Around

At the Children’s Museum of Manhattan, Suzy Mirvis, director of school programs, works with students to help them look at the world around them—including art—in a new way. The art installations and exhibits at CMOM include musical instruments found across Muslim cultures and challenge students to think of how art can shape spaces where we live. However, student groups aren’t led through the space and peppered with factual details such as the artist’s name. Instead, they’re encouraged to look at a piece of art and consider what it sparks inside them, from the details they see to the feelings they’re experiencing.

“There is no wrong way to look at art,” says Mirvis. “There is an intention of an artist, but ultimately looking at art is a balance between what the artist intended and what we see or feel when we look at it. It’s going to be different for every kid.”

To that end, Mirvis likes to bring a bit of local culture into the discussion, asking students what they see daily, even on their commute to school: street art. Classes may walk outside or look out from their window and see pieces of graffiti or even a mural that resembles images in their neighborhoods, reflecting different communities and cultures.

Within the museum, for example, a new exhibit, Inside Art, invites students to engage physically with art, considering how art can be “a vehicle for connection,” notes CMOM. There’s a deconstructed house designed by visual artist Isidro Blasco that children can climb on, and a tree constructed by artist Aya Rodriguez-Izumi on which visitors can add wishes, augmenting the art themselves. Ultimately, students feel encouraged to think of the many ways art can show up in our lives—from our homes to the clothes we wear, to the wooden chests we store them in.

“Art is not limited to art time, but to every part of our day,” Mirvis says.

Linking Art to Other Subjects

The London-based Art of Islamic Pattern has conducted workshops and educational trips across the Middle East and South Asia since 2008. It asks students of all ages to think about Islamic design and where else its patterns may appear.

Its work focuses on finding commonality between patterns in the natural world—from microscopic cellular structures to the spirals found within galaxies such as the Milky Way—and connecting these to mosaic patterns found on floor tiles or those carved in stone in a mosque.

“We’re looking at the different correlations across different fields of study,” says artist Richard Henry, cofounder with artist Adam Williamson of the organization, both of whom designed a series of six articles on geometric pattern making for AramcoWorld in 2022. “It can be related to history, geography, mathematics and art, and enables us to break down different genres across subjects.”

The Fibonacci and golden ratio spirals, both of which approach infinity while retaining their shape, exemplify how art in nature drives different fields of study. Found not only in mathematical texts, but the spiral also appears in nature in shells and biomorphic designs of Islamic patterns as well. Educators adopt this approach to help students connect not just different cultures but also subjects and then link these to help students bridge art and the world around them.

“As an educational tool, studying patterns within the world of nature can help you see how these manifest as design elements in daily artifacts or buildings,” Henry says. “Sometimes there are differences, but what’s interesting is to explore the commonalities.”

For Ali, these commonalities do more than just link students to what art can be. They help them see themselves as part of a great tapestry that bonds us all.

“I have learnt that art connects people. It creates a platform for all to ride together and enjoy this beautiful life,” he says.