Middle School
From Mind to Matter
Insert a coin, turn the handle, and a colorful capsule drops into a tray. Inside is a heart-shaped badge and a bad joke on a slip of paper. Some people laugh out loud, others pause and smile.
This was one moment of the 'From Mind to Matter' semester exhibition held on Hongqiao Campus in late May, planned and run entirely by students from the Curatorial CCA. It put work from every visual-arts student across the school on display.
Class projects in textiles, woodworking, ceramics, video art, calligraphy and other studio disciplines were carefully arranged alongside student work created at home, such as sketches, collages and digital paintings. Exhibits ranged from thick, layered acrylics to delicate clay forms, and from inventive mixed-media pieces to striking digital documents, each reflecting vivid imagination.
How do you design a narrative and a physical layout that allows such varied work to be both seen and understood? This question had inspired the Curatorial CCA course. Over the year, students evolved from participants into leaders, taking responsibility for every stage of the project, from preliminary research to visitor-flow planning, display-case placement and workshop preparation, with teachers supporting them as mentors. In class, students studied museum AR guides, large-scale collaborative installations and public-education programs, then refined their exhibition plans through group discussion and brainstorming.
The capsule machine was the last stop for many visitors. Conceived by Iris, the CCA's lead designer, it translated the theme 'From Mind to Matter' into ten heart-shaped badges, from film reels, to puzzle pieces, fabric swatches, and clay motifs, each representing a different artistic medium. Turning the handle was a light-hearted symbolic recapitulation of the show.
Elsewhere in the show, an entire wall of eighth-graders' self-portraits seemed to watch passersby. Joey, who led the exhibition design, placed a mirror at the centre so visitors could see themselves among the paintings, turning the students' theme 'Who am I?' into a question for every viewer.
The first-floor lobby contained a 'Pass the Knit Heart' area where a colourful yarn and cardboard co-creation activity turned visitors into participants, shifting them from looking to making. Shina, the activity designer, drew on the exhibition theme to give visitors a chance to experience the calm focus of working on a small, shared task, with no prior skills required.
Curatorial CCA students also planned and ran co-creation activities such as the 'Heart Weaving Relay,' 'Blindfold Heart Drawing,' and 'Friendship-Bracelet DIY,' allowing more students opportunities to engage with art during lunch breaks. "I can feel the children's hearts in their work," one visitor said.
During the week after the opening, Curatorial CCA students acted as young docents, offering volunteer guided tours after school to help visitors understand the simple stories and creative thinking behind each piece. The real value of the curatorial course is exactly this, teaching students to fully express themselves, by communicating with an audience. From mind to hand, and from hand to viewer, the exhibition built a bridge from the creator's sincerity to the viewer's empathy.
Primary School
Caring for the World through Art
The art classrooms in the primary school have been equally lively. As the semester drew to a close, children of all grades transformed the results of their inquiry units into heartfelt works.
Year 4 students embarked on a creative journey that integrated art with inquiry, centred on the theme of animal protection. Inspired by the style of artist Marc Allante, and building on their Explotary Unit lessons, they conducted independent research on the current status of living, endangered, and extinct species, while exploring wildlife conservation issues. In art class, they applied printmaking techniques to design, printing their own animal-themed posters. They then painted vivid, tension-filled creatures in appropriate colours, using ink and glue to outline forms in Allante's signature bold style. These vibrant works celebrate the beauty of life while conveying the children's genuine concern for animal protection.
The works displayed by Year 5 also represent a seamless integration of the Exploratory Unit (EU) curriculum with art. From the EU theme 'Going Global' students explored topics such as global citizenship, trade, and sustainable development. In alignment with the UN Sustainable Development Goals, they selected global issues of personal interest and then pursued in-depth research. Finally, they brought their findings into the art classroom, where they transformed them into display cubes. Each illustrated and annotated piece exhibited the depth and creativity of interdisciplinary learning.
Simultaneously, the Year 5 graduating class, under the guidance of young artist and YK Pao School alumna Vicky Liu, created a metal wire art installation. Through workshops on shaping techniques, tool usage, and material selection, students explored the expressive potential of metal-wire art, before creating an individual piece inspired by their personal hopes, dreams, and future aspirations, which also incorporated the colours of their respective Houses. These 130 individual works were then assembled by artist JingYu (also a Year 5 parent) to make a commemorative installation presented to the school, constituting a lasting testament to the creativity, individual expression, and shared growth of the Year 5 Class of 2026.
* Special thanks to Ms. Nora Lian from the Middle School Art Department for her contribution to this article.
