By Madame Mofazali
This year, French 11 students had the wonderful opportunity to speak to Ben Heine, a talented multidisciplinary artist from Belgium. The students learned about Francophone art and culture by viewing and analyzing his different art pieces and musical compositions. The students created their own pencil versus camera inspired by Ben Heine’s work. When they met him on Skype, they spoke to him about their original creation and asked Ben questions regarding his art and point of view on art in general. It was an authentic experience that the students will cherish for a very long time. When asked how they felt about the experience, this is what the students had to say:
“It was an amazing experience to be able to exchange culture and art with a current artist in Europe. Ben Heine is an easy to talk to person and I enjoyed the depth of the conversations we had. It made me feel that the world is so small because we’re all connected despite our languages and geography/region.”
“For the past couple of weeks, we have been learning about the art of Ben Heine. Leading up to the interview we learned his many different art forms, his inspirations in his life, the difficulties he has had to overcome and how he has become such a well-known Belgium artist. The interview was a very unique experience. Being able to have our art looked at by such a well- known artist was very cool, and getting to ask him questions and how has inspired us was truly a once in a lifetime experience.”
This year, French 11 students had the wonderful opportunity to speak to Ben Heine, a talented multidisciplinary artist from Belgium. The students learned about Francophone art and culture by viewing and analyzing his different art pieces and musical compositions. The students created their own pencil versus camera inspired by Ben Heine’s work. When they met him on Skype, they spoke to him about their original creation and asked Ben questions regarding his art and point of view on art in general. It was an authentic experience that the students will cherish for a very long time. When asked how they felt about the experience, this is what the students had to say:
“It was an amazing experience to be able to exchange culture and art with a current artist in Europe. Ben Heine is an easy to talk to person and I enjoyed the depth of the conversations we had. It made me feel that the world is so small because we’re all connected despite our languages and geography/region.”
“For the past couple of weeks, we have been learning about the art of Ben Heine. Leading up to the interview we learned his many different art forms, his inspirations in his life, the difficulties he has had to overcome and how he has become such a well-known Belgium artist. The interview was a very unique experience. Being able to have our art looked at by such a well- known artist was very cool, and getting to ask him questions and how has inspired us was truly a once in a lifetime experience.”
For the past couple weeks, we have been studying the works and process of a famous Belgian artist, Ben Heine. With an immense passion for art, his ideals and artistic advice was truly captivating and helped many learning artists to improve and polish their skills. His non- conformist and multidisciplinary skills in art helped him morph these art forms and contrast them to create a deeper meaning out of them. Having to analyze and truly discover the sentiments behind his artworks has helped to improve our artistic understanding and our comprehension skills. His words of advice were inspiring, and taught me (and many others) to follow their passions and not to simply stick with one art form. To branch out and explore new and uncertain fields of skills, no matter the age started.