They took a hands-on look at a few specimens of pigeon whistles and learned how to distinguish between different types of whistles.
They explored which animal forms and materials were found in the instrument collection and tried to recognise their sounds. Moreover, they attempted to create and recreate artistic animal motifs appearing on instruments, in particular the dragon, bat and happiness motifs on the pipa plucked string instrument and the phoenix symbol on the sheng mouth organ.
The activities were concluded with a tour of objects in the SEM permanent exhibition, where the children became little detectives and inspected the exhibits for the animal motifs they have familiarised themselves with during the workshop.
The workshop was held as part of the East Asian Collections in Slovenia project by the University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Arts, Department of Asian Studies, and of the European Researchers’ Night – Humanities Rock! project.
Coordinator: VAZ project group, Klara Hrvatin, PhD, Faculty of Arts
Drawing: Ehssan Sakhaee for the East Asian Collections project
For more on the Počitniški 3M programme and registrations, see: https://www.nms.si/si/dogodki/2022/08/26/11136-Pocitniski-3M-2022
