The great Mexican artist Frida Kahlo is in Berlin! I mean she has passed away but over 120 paintings and drawings are on display in the Martin-Gropius-Bau and it is one of the most extensive exhibition of Frida Kahlo’s oeuvre to date. I could not miss such an opportunity to share Hispanic culture with my students. So the Art teacher and me decided to take the 9th graders (14-15 years old) on a field trip to Berlin.

Beforehand, I wanted to prepare the students for the exhibition, so I made them watch the movie Frida with Salma Hayek. The movie depicts the professional and private life of the Mexican painter. We watched the movie in English as my students are only Spanish beginners but it was an excellent insight into the Mexican culture and into Frida Kahlo’s life.

Before watching the movie, I displayed different items related to Frida Kahlo’s life: a bus (a toy!), a monkey (a cuddly toy!), Diego Rivera portrait, a Communist flag, a picture of New York, a picture of la casa azul, a quotation “I never painted dreams. I painted my own reality.” – “Creían que yo era surrealista, pero no lo era. Nunca pinté mis sueños. Pinté mi propia realidad”. (You can download the picture here: items.frida). In pairs, students were asked to look at each item and to ask a meaningful question about each. I then told the students to answer their questions whilst watching the film. I also gave them a questionnaire about two scenes happening in the film and which relate to two different paintings:

After watching the movie, we continued to discuss it with a list of questions (you can download it here: Frida_movie). This time, I asked the students to write their answers on slips of paper. Each student had to read aloud a slip of paper from another student.

We then talked about self-portraits, which Frida painted a lot. I wrote some questions on poster paper:

• What is a self-portrait?
  
• What are its common characteristics ?
  
• Can you identify other self-portraits done by famous artists?
• What is the expressive value of this form?
  
• Through her self-portraits, what did Frida wanted to share? (the bus accident, the loss of her baby…)

Students worked in groups of 3 to write their answers on the poster papers. They had five minutes to answer and then they had to pass their questions to another group. The other group was allowed to cross out some answers if they thought they were incorrect. However they had to justify their decisions. These activities worked out very well and led to some very interesting discussions. The class thoroughly enjoyed the movie.

All of the above happened in English. I then had an activity where students had to speak in Spanish.
I posted different paintings outside the door to the classroom. There were all self-portraits. Students were in groups of 3.
Student A from each group went in the hall to look at the painting. After looking at the painting, Student A met Student B at the door to the classroom. Student A described the painting in Spanish to student B. No English was allowed, however, students could use gestures and body language to aid them in communication.
Student B received the description of the painting from Student A, but was not allowed to look at the painting itself. Student B was allowed to ask questions in Spanish for clarification. After receiving the information, Student B reported back to Student C, who was seated in the classroom.
Student C remained seated in the classroom the entire time. Student C drew the scene that was described by Student B. The goal of the activity was to have as many details as possible in the student drawing. Student B ran back and forth between the two students multiple times to gather and report additional information.
This activity went on for 10-15 minutes. At the end, students could see the real painting and check to see how many details they were able to correctly place in their own drawing.

Finally, on Friday we took the train to Berlin! We were very excited to see Frida Kahlo’s real paintings! The Art teacher had booked a guide,, which was a wise decision as there was a very long waiting queue at the entrance of the museum. Because we had booked a guide, we didn’t have to queue! The guided tour went on for an hour and was very interesting. We then let the students wander for another hour with a questionnaire to fill in (you can download it here: Frida_Kahlo_Retrospektive). We will discuss the answers next week in class.
All in all, it was a wonderful experience for my students. They got to understand the Mexican culture and art better, and I hope they will have remembered at least one painting from Frida Kahlo.