Cool Culture, MoMA and Twitter bring Picasso to East Harlem
On Friday, November 4, 2016, Cool Culture proudly partnered for a second year in a row with Twitter for their bi-annual #FridayforGood day of service! The event took place at Cool Culture’s preschool partner center, East Harlem Bilingual Head Start, a dual language Early Childhood Center.
Twitter volunteers were split into three participating classrooms, where two MoMA ( @moma ) teaching artists and Cool Culture’s very own Program Director, Jennifer Byrd, led workshops using a curriculum created by MoMA and Cool Culture. During this workshop, children were introduced to abstract artist Pablo Picasso, shapes and creating new characters. They, then, created their own abstract masterpieces using fun materials of different shapes, sizes and colors. Finally, children placed their art pieces up on a wall, and went over proper museum viewing etiquette.
Twitter volunteers participated in these activities by asking the students guided questions about their creative process and by helping the young artists to find more unique ways to complete their art pieces. They also encouraged the children to share their thoughts in English and in Spanish.
Cool Culture is dedicated to providing over 50,000 of NYC’s most diverse families with free and unlimited access to museums and other cultural institutions yearly, as a means to increasing literacy and learning and family engagement.
The children had a blast meeting the volunteers and trying their hand at being young Picasso’s. We’re grateful for all the support from the attentive and friendly Twitter volunteers and to MoMA and its teaching artists, Kerry Downey and Gabriela O’Leary.
The morning of #FridayForGood was an example of our commitment to connecting preschool students to the arts, and we’re thrilled to have been able to share that experience with Twitter staff.
