PLAY, ART, CULTURE, PAINTING, NARRATIVE, VISUAL ARTS, AESTHETIC PROCESSES, COMMUNITY
REGION: Southern Denmark
MUNICIPALITY: Vejle
PROCEDURE: 2021
DAILY OFFER: Trip Trap Clogs
Short story: Trip Trap Clogs (2021)
We are concerned with several things in our work:
- How do we build community in our multicultural world?
- How can we include all children?
- How do we create a framework so that children dare to participate, become curious and all children get involved in the project
- We are committed to practicing together and creating something together
Important: The focus should be on the children and we are curious to see how this project becomes the children's project.
How have you experienced the co-creation between artist/cultural educator/cultural school teacher, educators and children and possibly researcher?
It has been a good experience in a difficult period. The project was planned while Corona was still open. But by the time we were ready to get started, Corona had come back. So large parts of the project have been run through online communication, combined with physical activities organized by the educators, as well as a few physical artist visits where it was absolutely necessary.
But even though we had to do it that way, it has been a good experience and maybe actually helped strengthen the collaboration part, as none of what we did would be possible without good collaboration.
How have children's perspectives been expressed/included?
In the project, we have worked with storytelling, visual art and music - in an open form. This means that a direction was initially set, but without any concrete content being developed. After each workshop, we agreed on what would happen next, so that we didn't think too far ahead, but could adapt it to the children's interests.
The storytelling involved making up a story about four children who got lost in the snow and happened to find the fire pit. The story came to include ideas for games and activities.
The visual arts part consisted of the children painting different motifs for the bonfire hut and collaborating on a common picture. The music part consisted of creating verses to a song one of the educators had made and then making a music video.
In all three parts, it was the children who helped steer the content and direction, as well as contribute to the concrete content. This was done through joint activities.
Do the children play different games and with different people than they usually do?
It's still too early to tell, but they have already incorporated the fire pit into their play. We also think we can see a sense of pride in the children that they have helped paint it.
How do pedagogical staff act differently than they did before PlayArt?
Again, it's still early days, but we seem to be seeing a different approach.
What has it been like to work with action learning?
It has been interesting and has given us experience with new ways of collaborating across children, adults and outsiders. It has given us a different way of working with projects, especially projects with open agendas.
To the artist/cultural educator/cultural school teacher, if present: What have you gained from participating in LegeKunst?
A very exciting process where you had to collaborate between several different parties and had to be able to do it online for large parts of the time.
The general joy of collaborating with educators who also have many great ideas of their own.
A deeper understanding of pedagogy.
What are educators still/now curious about?
New ways of working with narrative, music and images.
How to man can involve parents in artistic processes.
How will you use art, culture and aesthetic processes in the future?
We will focus on how new children can contribute to the history and identity of the bonfire hut through artistic processes.
We want to incorporate knowing how to create shared stories, songs and images into new projects.
What points of attention do we need to take forward?
How can we simplify the processes further and how can we transfer the ideas to shorter everyday activities?
