Since TASIS opened at the beginning of September, 2020, for the new school year, students returned to the art studios of the Şahenk Art Center after an absence of 6 months. The situation is a bit changed in our world and at school, but the teachers and students are happy to be back together to learn and make art.
In order to satisfy regulations for safe distancing and health, plexiglas panels have been added to the Architecture studio, the Photo Lab, and the Middle School Art Room. The Middle School Art Room and the Photo Lab have been the most notably altered as desks and tables have been separated to accommodate mandatory distancing of students. Students and teachers regularly disinfect all the working surfaces, including computer keyboards, mouse, desks, and shared tools.
This means that Studio photography is more difficult and students now must use portable equipment to set up where they can. All the art and design studios must work with more limited work space for art making. The days of students spreading out in the process of creating new work has been suspended until such time that we can work together without masks and disinfectant. Students in Mr. Dukes’ High School Art room have been given their art supplies which they must store in individual plastic boxes with their sketchbooks in order to impede sharing or touching by others. Sketchbooks that leave the classroom can’t come back. This is the level of caution we have to take to try to limit the spread of the COVID-19 virus.
Despite the relative inconvenience and the challenge these precautions present for classes where students are making things and experimenting with techniques and materials, everyone in the TASIS Visual Arts department would like to ensure that we can continue to meet in person, in the art rooms, where students and teachers and work together.
