Artistic creation and dissemination of landscape in hybrid online learning

Abstract

The interdisciplinary teaching innovation project “Graphic description of the monumental trees of the Region of Murcia” arose within the teaching innovation group of the University of Murcia “Art in Construction” during the 2020–21 academic year. Its aim was to try to solve the limitations to classroom teaching resulting from the health emergency caused by COVID-19 in Spain. Among the pandemic containment measures put in place by the Spanish government, there were physical distancing regulations and travel restrictions. This generated a widespread need to adapt university teaching from a fully face-to-face to an online hybrid scenario. This was a major handicap in eminently practical subjects, such as “Painting and Landscape” and “Design” in the Fine Arts Degree, “Teaching and Learning in the Natural Environment” or “Nature Workshops” in the Primary Education Degree at the University of Murcia. The main limitation was the impossibility of carrying out practices of direct observation of the landscape, research and graphic representation jointly in the classroom. To provide a solution to this circumstance, we proposed the usefulness of implementing a collaborative and interdisciplinary methodological action based on the autonomous work of the students with the coordination of the teaching staff developed through the virtual environment. We designed a didactic intervention based on the development of a collaborative social, pedagogical, and artistic c/a/r/tography through the direct and individual observation of the local arboreal heritage of each participant. This intervention was materialised in the publication of the book Singular Trees of the Region of Murcia.