We had a blast last night hosting the Bureau of Surrealist Enquiries. A mix of families and adults came to learn about the Surrealist movement, make collages, play the collaborative exquisite corpse drawing and poem writing games, and to try blackout poetry. Once we got started there was no stopping us!

We began by taking ourselves to 1920s Paris, and talking about how WWI turned everyone’s lives upside down. Since we process our world and our emotions through art, artists were ready to find new ways of thinking. Some of the things the surrealists valued were juxtaposing everyday objects in unexpected ways (the element of SURPRISE), mining their DREAMS for writing and drawing – not worrying about the logical, letting the IMAGINATION guide us, and letting the subconscious take the lead (FIRST THOUGHT, BEST THOUGHT). All the while, music by Surrealist era composers played in the background.

We worked non-stop for over an hour!

And then we unveiled our Collages & Exquisite Corpses:

Stopping for a Surreal Snack (the pop-rocks were unexpected!):

We read some wacky poetry:

And finished up with some group photos: