Image Education and Didactics of Cultural Heritage. Graphic and Creative Workshops Within the Project “La Scuola Adotta La Città”

Within the Laboratories of Drawing and Image Education activated by the Degree Courses in Educational Sciences of the Palermo University -and connected to the internships of future teachers-, various laboratory activities have been carried out over the years, with an integration between Museum Didactics, Didactics of the Cultural Heritage of the Territory and a creative approach to the artistic masterpiece. The students, under the supervision of the university tutors, were invited to propose, within the classes in which they were placed as trainee teachers, projects of workshop activities in which to experiment, in addition to the graphic learning of the work performed with creative re-appropriation techniques (redesign, artistic techniques related or similar to the executive techniques of the studied works), complete programs in which to insert interactions with other disciplines, guided visits to places, exhibitions and final happening activities; in particular, active participation in the events proposed periodically by the city institutions was planned. An interesting connection was made possible (before the restrictions due to the pandemic crisis) by linking the initiatives relating to the event “Palermo opens its doors/The school adopts the city” with the circuit of Norman monuments recently included in the UNESCO World Heritage List. The study of architectural artefacts and of the artworks kept in them, mainly Byzantine mosaics, has become an opportunity for both recreation and learning, with an approach that has favored the manual skill of the re-design and re-construction as a privileged way for the acquisition of knowledge.