What's this?

What's this?

Influenced by the spiritual heritage of Victor Vasarely, Colourful City reinterpreted the idea that art must move to the public spaces, in order to make our dull, grey and in some cases extremely run-down and neglected living environment more colourful. We would also like to involve youngsters in this exciting project, so this is why the Butterfly Effect Pedagogical Program (BEPP) was created. The mission of BEPP is to get as many young people as possible involved in colouring our cities as part of the aesthetic and artistic education of the younger generation.

BEPP started out in 2010 as the pedagogical project of the Colourful City Movement in Budapest. After the first scene, which was colouring Pöttyös Street underground station and its surrounding area in the 9th district of Budapest, the project grew into a program. At the official ribbon-cutting ceremony Dr. János Bácskai, mayor of Ferencváros, delivered a speech and the Jack Robinson Band performed a gig; two students wrote the anthem of the Pöttyös street project, which they performed on this occasion. The locals, on their own initiative, planted flowers around the area we coloured and they also brought refreshments to the working youngsters. The murals also got into Műcsarnok (the Art Hall of Budapest), as an acknowledgement by the special prize of a competition, furthermore, Józsua Pfeffer, student coordinator, made a hugely successful presentation about the program on the TedxYouth Budapest conference, which was part of the international TED series presenting the most original ideas of the world.

BEPP has several explicit pedagogical goals: on the one hand, the goal of the program is to make students work autonomously: they should build up the entire painting project and separate student groups should work on all the different tasks in connection with painting the given wall. So they should work in a team while executing different tasks like planning, realisation, photo and video documentation, ribbon-cutting ceremony and communication, in order to experience project-based work, which is characteristic of the labour market. On the other hand, it is our intention that during the selection of the social problem that is to be depicted on the wall the students have a chance to gain a deeper understanding of the issue, enhance their critical thinking and obtain more knowledge for formulating well-grounded opinions, and also for expressing their opinions in a legal and cultured way. Further pedagogical aims are self-regulated working and improving such key competences as social and citizenship competences, digital competence, mother tongue competence, initiation and entrepreneurial competence, mathematical competence, aesthetic and artistic consciousness and expressiveness and the competence of autonomous, efficient and task-oriented learning. Last but not least, it is our emphatic intention to develop a liking in students for voluntary work and pro-social communal activities.

The Heritage and Society Foundation provides the pedagogical program and personalised consultation during the course of the pedagogical process. It also takes the responsibility of obtaining the necessary official authorizations for the painting of the specific wall surface, provides the paint and professional support to educators and students throughout the different phases of the project.

The Heritage and Society Foundation requires the applicant school to endorse the program, incorporate it in its academic work schedule; it also suggests that this should become a cross-grade program and besides the teacher coordinator there should be a student coordinator as well. We also consent to including the work done by the students on the project in their school achievements assessments.

As a consequence of the continuous photo and video documentation of the undertakings of the project, one or several short films are created about the whole working process. After the public space colouring students receive feedback on the work they took part in by getting a certificate. In this feedback special emphasis is put on those skills that may be worthwhile to improve and that can be important in the future in terms of teamwork.

Since 14 February 2012, BEP has been on the official list of the places for internship practice at the Institute of Educational Sciences of ELTE Faculty of Pedagogy and Psychology.

Our professional partners are: Corvinus University Institute of Behavioural Science and Communication Theory, Eötvös Loránd University Faculty of Pedagogy and Psychology - Institute of Education Sciences, Department of Applied Education Theory, Infonia Foundation, Hungarian Pedagogical Society, Hungarian Society for Urban Planning