During the assignment called “portrait gallery”, each group had to make a stereotypical drawing about the Belgian, Spanish or Austrian male or female.
We liked this workshop because you saw how the other countries imagined a boy or girl of your country. It was sometimes funny because the jokes We liked this workshop because you saw how the other countries imagined a boy or girl of your country. Before we started drawing there were certain guidelines that we had to adhere to or certain elements that had to be incorporated into the drawing, for example a musical instrument, a word we use a lot in our country or a typical joke. It was sometimes funny because the jokes were good, like the Spanish people called themselves stingy. This was the joke we liked the most: “How do you ensure that 40 Catalans sit in one car? You throw a euro in the car. How do you let them come out? You need to say it’s a taxi.”
It was good that the teachers gave us some guidelines to draw, like favourite food, favourite drinks, a landscape, his/her hobbies, clothes, etc. In Vienna, the stereotypical boy wears lederhosen, in Belgium they wear a big jacket and in Spain they wear shorts and a shirt.
Throughout this activity, we saw amazing designs and drawings of different groups and were really surprised how well some people of the group could draw.
At the end of this activity, we could walk around and look at each other’s drawings. You could also ask questions about the pictures if you didn’t understand why they drew something. No drawing reflected how people really looked, so they were definitely stereotypical. We have learned from this assignment that you can’t have too many prejudices about someone because he’s from a certain country.
To summarize, we found this one of the most fun activities and won’t forget the funny and remarkable drawings in the near future.
Charles Toye, Kamiel Degezelle, Thibe Hanssens, Lily De Bouvrie
Identify Democracy 