Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Travel The Silk Road

My Summer @ Princeton Public Library:

On Saturday June 14th at Princeton public library I have a one hour program about the Silk Road for kids (age 6-10). Travel the Silk Road is a craft program concentrating on Silk and Spices . I gave the proposal to the children section of Princeton public library* last September. My interest in the Silk Road got stronger ever since I was a TA for an art history course covering the cultural exchanges along this longest trade route in the history; by modern means of traveling the Silk Routes are still active today. The Silk Road expanded over 8,000 km (5,000 miles) on land and sea and is active in both directions from the East to the West and vice versa.

These are the two collage samples for the program. While making these, Roya reminded me of a childhood memory shared with all of us who grew up in Iran; the memories of the 5 o'clock children's program, where they showed over a dozen drawings done by children under 14: each day, making everyone of us kids wait before the main program begin. Such a long wait and such a boring idea, but it was during the war and the TV producers filled their one hour children's program showing these drawings. We, on the receivers' side of the IRI TV, would hear the kids' names, their ages and their hometowns while looking at the often pale drawings on the screen: Maryam, 4 years old from Yazd; Ahmad 7 from Rasht ... In the same manner, these are works by Roya (n) years old from Shiraz and Roja (n-1)**, from Tehran.




Fabric & Spices Collage, Craft Samples for children's program, June 2008


* Check out other Events for Children at Princeton Public Library here.
**(assume n<14)


10 comments:

Anonymous said...

متاسفانه خاطرات ما از اون برنامه که من خودم نقاشی براش فرستاده بودم کاملا گره خورده به اون لیست اسامی که درست قبل از شروع اون برنامه خونده میشد... کاش این کار رو نمیکردن باهامون.
By the way, have you seen http://brooklynrail.org.
It is great!

jeerjeerak said...

nice job you two:)

Anonymous said...

As you said Roja jan, it was an other of our childhood memories .
I can't say it was bad or good. But it was waste of time.
any way for your new drawing I say like old days
AFRIN 100 AFRIN 1300 AFRIN :)

Anonymous said...

I try to remember Marco Polo on his trip on Silky way!
in one time, i felt in love with his cartoon character and i hated when the movie/cartoon switch to real people and places instead of my lovely Marco...i wish you best in your presentation. good luck.

Anonymous said...

Well...
Everything related to those days, is now a nostalgia! All of those childish afternoons, full of Nell, Pesare shoja, pinocio, mohajeran Hana and those paintings! But all in all, they made our generation a unique one...a generation born in war and grown up in war...
Who knows! We could have been pretty different without all of those silly afternoons...

Good luck dear Roja!

Shadi said...

I sickly love anything that brings that Nostalgia to the surface!
Great job Roja and good luck!

Behdokht said...

You made me remind of those days after sooo long Roja jan, nice job BTW :)

Anonymous said...

bah bah! I enjoyed seeing your artworks! Keep up a good work!!

ادمین said...

I liked the art work! Would be nice if I have one or two of them in my house :D

Tameshk said...

Siavash Jan
It is interesting to here your side: i never knew anyone who actually sent a drawing for them!

Jeerjeerak Joonam
Thanks ;D

Bayram Joonam
Thanks; I have forgotten all about these Afarin, 100 Afarin 1300 Afarin ;D

Leva Joon,
I am actually looking to find that cartoon. and We did talked about Marco Polo on the library session.

Dear Parinaz
Thanks for your comment. I remember watching the cartoons eating round slices of cucumber and vinegar, I really miss my aunt know, she always made us each a bowl of what I like to call cucumber delight, although they were everything opposite sweet.

Adam Golabi Joonam
Thanks for your good wishes; it went very well.

Ba Kavir Jan
I had so much fun with Roya, making them ;D Jaye shoma khali!

Dear Khorshid Khanoom
The nice lady who organized the program have the pieces now and exactly for the same purpose so I think Roya and I can start our business soon ;D