Hi! I am Elvira Vroomen, visual arts teacher and creator of food projects with schoolchildren based in Amsterdam.

 

As a teacher I love to develop art lessons and enjoy working with students ranging from young children to adults.

I currently work at Winford Amsterdam, teaching primary school children as well as exam classes. I often try to make interdisciplinary connections between the pupils' art classes and their other classes. I believe that art education is an integral part of every person's development. It is a forum for expression, communication, cultural and historical understanding. In my art classes, I give students the opportunity to develop their imagination, learn self-reflection and connect with each other! 

I organise student exhibitions in and outside the school environment and work together with galleries like Framer Framed, Neverneverland and the Breitner Academy in Amsterdam.

 

In 2005, I received my BA in Art Education from the Academy of Visual Arts in Amsterdam. In 2020, I completed my Master in Arts Education at  Piet Zwart Institute, Rotterdam. My graduation project was about how engaging food contribute to an artistic programme in secondary education and promote a connection between the context inside and outside the classroom? 

 

In addition to my academic training, between 2014 and 2015 I did an internship at Green School in Bali, Indonesia and followed the Green Educators Course. This experience has had a strong effect on the way I teach and think about art education. 

 

When I am not teaching, you can find me in my studio in Amsterdam-Noord that I built myself in a former shipyard.

In my daily life I enjoy taking long walks with my dog Disko and my husband André, practicing yoga, enjoying the cultural life and spending time with my friends and family. My roots lie in Indonesia and enjoy to visit Indonesia and practice my Bahasa.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In my work as a visual education teacher, I often look for ways in which pupils can express themselves through art and share this with a classmate or group. An experience at a school camp made me interested in the interactions between pupils, their learning environment and food, or the act of eating. This event included a series of creative elements such as devising a recipe and preparing and presenting a dish. How could these interactions be incorporated into an art class? What do you need to design a performative meal with a group? How can engaging with food contribute to an artistic programme in secondary education and promote connections between the context in the classroom and outside of it?

 

I designed a recipe book with a lesson plan on food, art and secondary school pupils. Through the projects and underlying research, the recipe book will guide people interested in exploring food and design when working with secondary school pupils. My aim is to create new opportunities by bringing the subject of food and art to life in secondary education.