Primary Forms (2022-2023)

What is Primary Forms project? 

Primary Forms is a cyclical program for pupils at Polish primary schools. It has been carried out by the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw and the Roman Czernecki Educational Foundation since 2021. In each edition of the program a new set of artistic instructions, games, scores and objects are created and delivered to schools packed in specially designed boxes. These are used at the schools as a base for creation of artworks, art activities and exhibitions. The works are not necessarily tangible; a range of performances, concerts and happenings have been executed during the first few editions. So far, editions of Primary Forms have been spread out across Poland, but mainly in towns with a population below 30,000. In 2024 the program was also part of the Thailand Biennale. Primary Forms was included in a project executed by the Filipino artist Poklong Anading at a school library in Chiang Rai, Thailand.

Inspirations and Historical References 

Primary Forms was inspired by the School Prints program launched in the UK immediately after the Second World War, during the turbulent times of forging a new political and social order in Europe. An identical set of lithographs by a group of well-known artists were distributed to primary schools and displayed in classrooms. In the scheme, new works were created by artists such as Barbara Jones, Henri Matisse, Henry Moore, John Nash and Pablo Picasso. The Primary Forms program also alludes to numerous other experiments connected with art and education in the 20th and 21st centuries. One point of reference is Marcel Duchamp and his travelling “museum in a suitcase,” or “Fluxkits ”—boxes prepared by artists affiliated with the Fluxus movement, containing scores, models, audio recordings, games, puzzles and stencils. Another example is Pure Consciousness, a series of exhibitions begun at preschools in 1998 of works by the Japanese conceptual artist On Kawara. In the educational context and in the company of children, Kawara’s paintings were used as a teaching instrument helping children learn numbers and the days of the week. Primary Forms is also inspired by the exercises and methodologies of artists who worked in schools or established their own educational institutions, such as Joseph Beuys, Cornelius Cardew, Jef Geys, Anna Halprin, Oskar Hansen, Asger Jorn, K.G. Subramanyan, and many others.

The School as Exhibition, Children as Creators

The boxes distributed to the schools contain within themselves a “dormant exhibition,” which can be materialized in the form chosen by the pupils. The activities in the program play out in the rhythm of the school year. Teachers, with the support of museum educators, work with teams of pupils from grades 4 through 8. The essence of the process is to place agency in the children’s hands and for them to learn from one another within the creative activity. The group has time for experiments, asking questions, stretching their imagination, and testing themselves in new roles (for the teachers as well). The teachers involved in the program take part in training, workshops and plein-air sessions, to prepare them for work in the project—to familiarize them with contemporary, conceptual art based on process, actions and relationships, not only on creating objects, so that they can integrate these activities into their future work as teachers.

What Can an Exhibition Be? 

The exhibitions which are the fruits of the teams’ efforts are created within school spaces—in classrooms and corridors, in the gymnasium or the playground. They can be performed numerous times and interpreted in various ways, much like playing a musical score. Through the Primary Forms program, we pose questions like: What can we do with art? What can be an exhibition? Where and when does an exhibition start and end? What can we learn from artists? Does contact with art give rise to knowledge? How to understand art—and also enjoy not understanding it?

Water brings to mind silence. It is said, for example – as in the well-known proverb – that fish should be seen and not heard. And since the same is said about children, it certainly cannot be true. After all, many things are going on under the water surface! There’s a lot of hustle and bustle. Think about what sounds are made there. Can a sound be sticky, cold, oily, sharp, or perhaps round?

Tarek Atoui invites you to form a water orchestra. The box contains several simple objects that will help you do a dry run (or rather a wet run!) of sounds generated underwater and on the water surface. So fill your mugs, bowls, buckets and jars, and form your school music band.

Does every drop of water that falls on the surface sound the same? What emotions does the sound of water inspire? Do fish have a voice? Who makes noise underwater? Are there sounds we cannot hear? What do coral reefs hum about?

Listen to drops, to a storm in a teacup, to underwater bubbles. Water containers will be your instruments. Equipped with proper tools, you will make a lot of water sounds and learn to listen to the underwater world. Recording these sounds is a rather complex task, which will require additional elements. If you wish to record your orchestra’s concert, e-mail us at: formy@edukacja.artmuseum.pl, and we’ll deliver all necessary tools. 

Alicja Bielawska
"EXPAND VIEW IN AN AFTERIMAGE"

Alicja’s box contains a variety of fabrics. Take them and lay them out in any place in your school: classroom, corridor, or schoolyard. Depending on the space, the fabrics can reveal their potential in different ways. The more place at your disposal, the more possibilities exist.

Look carefully at the colours and shapes of the fabrics, their thickness and texture, as well as what they are made of. Think about what these textiles remind you of. Which of them are you more used to, and which of them less? Geometrical shapes may suggest potential use, steer you into various associations, provoke you to move or even dream. 

You can animate the fabrics by moving them, individually or in a group, you can wrap yourselves in them, hang them, and much more – you can do everything that comes to your mind. There are tunnels on the sides of each of them, into which you can insert a broomstick, for example, and there are metal rings that will help you fix them. You can build meanings by setting fabric in motion: a textile banner or flag represent ideas and identities. Fabric can also be used to separate space, it can offer a sense of privacy and safety, give shelter and dress wounds. It is soft architecture.

How many people are needed to carry a banner?
What can you manifest with it?
How many people can fit on fabric laid out on the floor or another surface?
How can fabric delineate a place to rest?
How does it happen that fabric may both let light through and reflect it?
How does colour influence the way we feel? 
How does it build atmosphere and temperature in an interior?

Katya Buchatska
"The Secret Player"

The work prepared by Katya Buchatska is a deck of multicolour cards.

The blue ones are objects. They are used inside the building: in the classroom, gym hall, corridor. Draw one and imagine yourself as an object. You’re a book, a bottle, or maybe a pair of shoes? Find a place where you’ll feel comfortable in your role. It is known that, for example, books like lying on the shelf or on the table, but be careful – you won’t fit everywhere. Stay there motionless for one or two minutes. How do you feel?

As a group, act like the objects you’ve drawn at the same time. Ask someone to take a photo when you’ve all become things. Looking at this photo, can you guess who plays what role?

The green cards are animals. They are used outside the building. Take one and imagine yourself as the animal you’ve drawn. Move like it, make appropriate sound. Play together with the rest of the group for a minute or two. Ask someone to take a photo of you as a herd. Can you tell who plays what role? What animal are you? Do you crawl, fly or jump in the trees (just be careful!)? Are you a warm-blooded or a cold-blooded creature? What do you feed on? How do you feel in this role? 

The red cards are emotions. Return to the classroom or, if possible, to the auditorium. Go on stage; the same box contains Alicja Bielawska’s fabrics, and you can use one to sit on. Choose a card and show it to the other players. 

Talk about how you feel about the emotions you’ve drawn. How often do you experience it? Where? Do you fell all right with it?  There are no winners and no losers in this game. People, objects, animals and emotions win. But you can award special prizes, for example, for the most convincingly played role of a book!

Dora García
"100 IMPOSSIBLE ARTWORKS"

Dora García returned to her list of “things to do”, written twenty years ago. The tasks are rather peculiar – actually impossible to carry out. Each of them is, or rather could be an individual artwork. Executing some of them would take too much time (“To photograph every moment of your life”), while others are simply beyond human capacity (“To quit sleeping”) or go against common sense (“To be transparent”). There are also tasks that are seemingly easier to carry out: “To know the truth” or “To read minds”.

How to approach this? Are these nothing but jokes, or perhaps they hide a secret? As we know, things often happen in art that may at first come across as unreasonable, unreal, or simply silly. We can also assume that it’s an invitation to a journey into the unknown.

Start by hanging the poster in a place where you and your group can see it. You can draw and write on it, decorate it, mark tasks that seem interesting, comment on them. Talk about what and how can be done to make the impossible at least a little bit possible. Exchange tasks, challenge someone to an impossible duel. Or work in secrecy on a special mission.

Think about what is more important: a good idea or its execution?
Does art have to have its weight, height and width, does it have to be visible?
Do you remember tasks that seemed impossible to carry out in the past, but have now become easy?
Can you think of something that posed no difficulties in the past, but seems impossible now?
When do we consider something “done”?
Can an artwork change over time?
If so, does it only happen when we don’t look at it?
Do we ourselves change over time? 

Prabhakar Pachpute
"BASED ON 100 PROVERBS"

Prabhakar Pachpute’s paintings are populated by a variety of hybrid creatures. We can recognise their parts: here we see a hammer, there we see an aerial and a cow’s head, a fragment of a tree, and there we find elephant tusks. These creatures march on human legs, their heads often replaced by tools. Neither people nor animals. They are like nightmares or fairy tales that could be invented by children of Indian miners, who descend underground every day to extract coal in dark tunnels. Set in mining landscapes, the creatures are surrounded by billowing snakes, strolling elephants and tigers. It is not a merry world – it rather brings to mind nighttime illusions, feverish visions.

How about inviting one of the figures inhabiting the artist’s dreamy paintings to your school? Take a look inside the box. Who is that creature? What’s its name? What’s its history? Can you try to tell it and then write it down? Can this creature from a far-off land come to life in darkness? What shadow does it cast? What voice does it speak with?

If you like, you can send a postcard to India and share your story with Prabhakar. We know he’s looking forward to receiving your tales. If you want to do this, use one of the cards with a stamp from the box and send it to the Museum, we’ll take care of the rest.

Aside from that, think about how you can recognise that you’re not dreaming. Can you travel very far without leaving home? Is it possible to talk with plants and animals, or perhaps even with a stone?

Joanna Piotrowska i Bożka Rydlewska
"SOLIDARITY IS OUR POWER"

Do you notice things around you that you would like to change? Perhaps the meals in the school cafeteria or the day schedule? Maybe you’d like to see more playgrounds and greenery instead of so many cars on the streets? By making a protest banner for you, Joanna and Bożka remind us that regardless of superior authority (such as the school director or the president of the country), deciding about one’s own affairs is a key element of life in society.

“Solidarity is our power” – begin by discussing together the topic introduced by this slogan, and it may soon turn out that what matters to you is also important for others. What and why would you like to change in your school and its vicinity? What solutions do you propose to achieve it? Arm yourselves with a plan and arguments, and when you decide what to protest about, proceed to the form – take a closer look at Joanna and Bożka’s banner.

How can you tell it’s a prop used in demonstrations?

Do you know that the represented person is Dominika Lasota – a Youth Climate Strike activist. Not much older than you, Dominika regularly takes part in happenings and protests that put pressure on politicians to take action to prevent global warming and environmental crisis. 

Prepare cardboards, paper or fabrics, paints and felt-tip pens, create banners for your demonstration. What will make them stand out? Colours, symbols, or perhaps slogans? What’s more, think about the choreography of your protest. Where will it take place? Will you stand in a symbolic location or march? With music, chants, or in silence? Will it take place on a working day or will it accompany, for example, your school’s official celebrations? Will you organise it once or will it become a cyclical event? How long will it last? How will you inform other people from your school and encourage them to take part in the protest? Can a protest be art? Can art change the world?

It’s all in your hands!

Raqs Media Collective
"TIME TRAVEL"

In Persian, Arabic and Urdu, “raqs” is the trance-like state experienced by whirling Dervishes. It is also an acronym for “Rarely Asked QuestionS”. For Raqs Media Collective, it has become a metaphor that characterises and indicates the directions of the group’s artistic activity.

The collective comprises Monica Narula, Jeebesh Bagchi and Shuddhabrata Sengupta, who met during their studies in Delhi, the capital of India. Since the establishment of Raqs in 1992, the city has often been a source of inspiration for their works and projects.

Raqs are active in many fields, often going beyond what we usually understand as art. They create documentary films and video-essays, as well as installations, collages, photographs, and digital works. They also operate intensive research and scholarly activity, publish books and texts, organise exhibitions, meetings, and events.

Raqs are also active in the field of experimental education. In 2000, they were among the co-founders of the Sarai programme as part of the activity of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies in Delhi. It functions as a residency centre, design and digital media laboratory, café, publishing house, and urban research centre. Sarai works with youth from slums interested in photography and poetry, among other communities.

The Raqs artists love philosophical speculation – they often employ artistic and scholarly methodology to imagine alternative scenarios, (im)possible worlds, and (im)probable visions of the future.

Jaśmina Wójcik
"PEASANT WOMAN"

Peasant Woman, whom you’ll find in the box, offers a great opportunity to get to know each other better. Jaśmina Wójcik’s idea is based on hopscotch, also called chłopek [“peasant” in Polish], a game that your parents and grandparents probably remember from their childhood. The artist explores the topic of the perennial function of games and the role of amusement in discovering the world and getting to know your colleagues and yourself.

The box includes instructions and boards in the shape of a peasant woman’s silhouette. Her body is a field on which new rituals, games and bonds are formed, and the figure’s blood circulatory system is filled with fluids of various activities. 

Start by choosing the place where you’ll lay out the board. This may be your classroom, corridor, schoolyard or pitch.

Warm yourselves up before you begin the game: set your bodies in motion!

Form groups of 3-4 people. Make sure the groups include colleagues you don’t know so well. Peasant Woman will help you exchange experiences and bond with each other.

Throwing a pouch filled with sand, start to roam the board and discover activities, drawings and phrases.

The box also contains a “secret diary”, that is a notebook that should circulate among players, passed from hand to hand. Each of you should add their own answers to the questions it asks and then fold the next page to form a triangle and hide there a little secret you’ve invented.

Here are the questions:

What’s your favourite game?
What’s the oldest game you know?
What can games teach you?
How can you get to know another person better?
Why do we need friendship?
What is a ritual?
What rituals do you have with your friends?
Do we like to have fun, and why?
How does a secret come into being and what can be a secret?

ZAKOLE
"Water Walkers"

The ZAKOLE collective invites you for an expedition. The box contains a number of objects: a magnifying glass, a mirror, fabric, and a letter. Read it carefully – you’ll find out what to do, what to look out for, how and in which direction to look. Take paints and paintbrushes with you. Wear clothes that you won’t regret to stain or get wet. Take a walk outside the school in search of water. In your area there is surely a water reservoir, river, marsh, humid meadow, or simply a large puddle.

The expedition will give you a lesson in observing the wet and humid world around you, noticing various forms of plant and animal life. You’ll look under your feet, but also observe the sky. You’ll smell, listen and breathe deeply. Take care and have fun. Splash!

Think about what can be learnt from creatures living in water. What would happen if a river had its name and surname, address, its own rights and duties? Could people live underwater? Is the amount of water in the world decreasing or is it always the same? What is climate and how is it different from weather?