Aesthetic representations among Himba people in Namibia

• The research in the present study focuses on preliterate people’s ways of modelling and drawing. Our aim is to understand how the participants solve the problem of making three-dimensional sculptures and two-dimensional drawings of themselves or animals in their surroundings. Also, we compare the meanings of the participants’ first-ever drawings, based on one of two ways of starting the activity. The first group was asked to draw a human figure or an animal without first creating a sculpture. The second group was asked to create sculptures before drawing the same motives. We found that both children and adults drew tadpoles. However, single view representations were more common in the group who had only made drawings, while in the sculpture/drawing-group half of the drawings showed more than one view in their representations of human figures. There were examples of culture-specific features with significant recognizable social meanings in both sculptures and drawings. The findings are discussed in terms of socio-cultural theories on the development of imagination and creative combinations in settings where new tools and tasks are at hand

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Utbildningsvetenskap -- Pedagogik (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Educational Sciences -- Pedagogy (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

socio-cultural theory

Namibia

first-ever-drawing

sculpture

exploring views

Education

Pedagogik

Publikations- och innehållstyp

ref (ämneskategori)

art (ämneskategori)