Play, visual arts, culture, aesthetic processes, community

REGION: North
MUNICIPALITY: Esbjerg
PROCEDURE: 2021
DAY OFFER: The cabin

Period: Aug-Dec 2021

Chair: Anja Steensen Johansen

Artist: Shorena

Type of art: Visual arts

Kick-off meeting: August 2021

SNUDE

Based on the overall action learning process with the Play-Art course, we can conclude that it has been an exciting and rewarding course. A process that on many points lived up to our expectations and on other points not.

We had an expectation that the Play-art course and the course with aesthetic learning environments could be combined. This was not possible due to time constraints. We will of course take the experiences from the Play-Art course with us in the next course.

In the first part of the Play and Art course, shadows were worked with in different ways. These included overhead projects, flashlights and dinosaur figures.

Action learning has been an effective way of working, in the reflection there was always an eye for where both children and adults were in the process and adjustments were made along the way.

After working with shadows, the educators felt that there should be more challenge in the project. Both because many of the children had actually worked with shadows before, but to a large extent also because the pedagogues had the courage to challenge their narrow approach to working with art and the need to be in control of the process.

This led to an educational, fun and challenging course with papier-mache, pushing the boundaries of both children and adults.

There have been many good reflections between the two participating educators and together with the artist. Among other things, there was a focus on how they best

supported the children's participation in the project. There was a focus on it being the children's own works of art. In other words, how and where is the limit for how much the adults should help to make it look like something from the adults' perspective.

There was also a strong focus on reaching the children's zone of proximal development, so that they could be motivated and wanted to participate. As well as reflections on what is art really?

When you do things in new ways, it takes time for the children to get used to it. It was clear the further into the process we got, that more people got the courage to participate. Creativity and idea development grew and started to flow more, also between the children.

There have been regular exhibitions of the children's art. Both in our glass cases, on bulletin boards, on walls and on the ceiling. It was clear that the children were proud of their participation in the program and their art.

Working with an artist has been both challenging and inspiring. It is definitely a method we would like to use again. However, it is important to be very precise in the alignment of expectations at the setup meeting. It is very important that the artist who comes to the daycare center can meet the children at their level. We were a bit challenged in terms of language barrier, the artist was sometimes difficult to understand for both children and adults.

-We have seen how the adults' sense of chaos and need for control affects the children's freedom to experiment.

- We continue to work with the curriculum theme "Culture, aesthetics and community". In January we will share the experiences with the rest of the staff group. It is still an expectation that we will see more experimental art courses in Kahytten, both with art and science in mind.

-We will try to have a tray with different materials freely available for the children.

We are still working on good ways to exhibit at children's level - without the art being destroyed by curious hands and passers-by.