The Rainbows Construction Site is a collective, creative workshop for every age, an invitation to play with colours and also a meaningful metaphor: we are all part of something wider. And all the individual contributions are foundamental for the community.
The setting of spaces and materials should be suitable according to the number and age of the participants, for example by arranging areas where the individual, a couple or maybe a small group can easily work on their piece of rainbow. Thus, I suggest you to take inspiration by these pictures in a very flexible way.
Each participant (or small group) is given a special shaped piece of white cardboard, that is part of a very big rainbow. Partecipants are invited to fill it with colours on both sides. As far as the type and the number of colours, there are endless possibilities. In this case, I chose only three ones (green, yellow and red) to keep in the same order. The available materials were various types of paper and colored surfaces, fabrics, ribbons, tapes, scissors, vinyl glue and brushes.
Now let’s see how to build the basic structure before the workshop. Choose the dimensions of the rainbow and put on the floor a big enough sheet of paper (or more sheets joined toghether). Draw the two big arcs with an artisanal compass (a rope with a pencil attached to one hand and the other end fixed to the center of the subtended circumference). Divide the arcs in a number of equal parts with vertical lines (the rainbow in the photofraph is divided in 14 parts, the one in the picture below in 8 parts). Finally, add the vertical “legs” of the structure below the arches: the scheme is ready.
Another solution consists in hanging the big sheet of paper and tracing the outline of a projected image of the structure drawing (previously drawn smaller).
Now you can cut the rainbow parts, trace them on a thick cardboard and cut them again. Finally, draw other parallel curved lines in order to divide three (or more) areas for different colors. The structure is ready for the workshop!
Finally, all the pieces can be joined together using transparent tape and leaving between them a distance equivalent to the thickness of the cardboard. In this way, the structure can be folded in many ways, becoming self-supporting or even “flat”, if needed.
I primarily designed this workshop for a public event in a square, where people could freely stop and work for as long as they wanted. But could also be suitable for various collective contexts and celebrations, for example in schools, both with known or unknown people. So new Rainbow Construction Site could be temporarily set in many places around the world… Would you like to try?
You are welcome to share your rainbow pictures sending them to info@robertapuccilab.com.
Enjoy!
