Yayoi Kusama STEAM activity Asian Pacific Islander Heritage Month Family Tinkering Lab 2021
Credit: TOSHIFUMI KITAMURA/AFP/AFP/Getty Images
To celebrate Asian Pacific Islander (API) Heritage Month, we’re learning about Yayoi Kusama’s My Eternal Soul painting series—and making our own artwork inspired by it!
Yayoi Kusama is a Japanese multimedia artist known for colorful work featuring polka dots, sculpture, installation art, and aspects of performance art. Born in Matsumoto, Japan in 1929, Kusama experienced hallucinations as a child, turning to painting as a way to express what she saw. Though trained in Nihonga, a traditional Japanese painting style, Kusama’s work took a more minimalist, abstract turn when she moved to New York in 1957.
In 2009, Kusama began My Eternal Soul, a series of over 500 paintings that continues to grow. For this project, which CNN describes as “an ongoing marathon of serialized imagery,” Kusama, now in her nineties, paints daily from morning to evening, finishing a new work every few days. Many of the paintings in My Eternal Soul feature dots, spots, cells, eyes, and amoebas.
Keeping with the spirit of lifelong creativity, this activity, based on this lesson plan from Faber Castell, encourages kids of all ages to explore shapes and colors while learning about the connections between art and biology.
Sources: https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/artist/yayoi-kusama https://www.cnn.com/style/article/yayoi-kusama-eternal-soul/index.html https://www.theartstory.org/artist/kusama-yayoi/ https://www.fabercastell.com/blogs/creativity-for-life/art-lesson-plan-yayoi-kusama LEARNING TARGETS MATERIALS
Youth will learn about Yayoi Kusama’s life and art, ❏ Colored pencils create their own works of abstract art inspired by her My ❏ Thin black markers Eternal Soul painting series, and make connections ❏ Printer paper or white cardstock between art and science by incorporating biological ❏ Colorful construction paper imagery into their work. ❏ Kid-safe scissors ❏ Glue sticks
TIME ACTIVITIES
[5] Pre-activity setup min. Read the background section of this lesson plan aloud, and enjoy the following video in which kids react to Yayoi Kusama’s work, including paintings from My Eternal Soul: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZH-x-lKvxg
Prepare materials, first setting up each station with printer paper or white cardstock and either pencil or black marker.
[2] The initial shape min. Draw an irregular, curvy shape on your sheet of paper. It should take up most of the sheet’s space. Most of your drawing for this project will reside inside this shape.
[3-5] What’s an amoeba? min. Check out this article by Britannica Kids to learn about the single-celled organisms we call amoebas.
From there, go ahead and draw one! This can be one of the largest elements in your design. [7-10] More microorganisms! min. While amoebas are a type of microbe, they’re not the only microorganisms out there—check out this YouTube video from The Dr. Bionics Show to learn about different types of microorganisms, including fungi, bacteria, viruses, algae, and protozoa.
Microorganisms come in all different shapes, so get creative as you add 4-5 to your sheet! Your artwork should start to look a bit like a petri dish. Make sure to leave some space, though, as we’ll be adding even more images in the next step!
[3-5] It’s doodle time. min. Yayoi Kusama once said, “I have a flood of ideas in my mind. I just follow my vision.”
In keeping with her inspiration, freely doodle in the open space between your microorganisms. Kusama loves incorporating eyes, dots, and faces into her artwork. What will you add that’s uniquely yours?
[10] Living colorfully min. Bring some color to your creation, starting with the background inside your large shape and filling in your amoeba, microorganisms, and doodles after that. Don’t be afraid to be bold! [5] Complete and mount your creation min. Carefully cut out your design (or have an adult help you), and glue your creation onto a colorful piece of construction paper. Now you have a Yayoi Kusama-inspired art piece—and newfound knowledge on amoebas and other microorganisms—to take home with you!
Reflection questions:
❏ How would you describe Yayoi Kusama’s art?
❏ What was your favorite microorganism to draw and why?
❏ Yayoi Kusama loves artmaking so much that she paints every day. What activities do you enjoy enough to practice daily?
MODIFICATIONS
For a shorter activity, omit all supplemental articles and videos except for the introductory YouTube clip. You can also stop after “Doodle time” and treat your drawings as coloring book pages to take home and continue to work on.
Depending on what supplies you have available, you can substitute colored pencils for crayons and felt pens for markers. Don’t want kids handling scissors? No problem—just stop at the “Living colorfully” step.