Learning through artworks

This post discusses the possibilities of artworks in facilitating learning and alternate ways of imagining the world. I draw upon the work of Maxine Greene and John Dewey to explore the proposition that children’s learning through artworks has the potential to challenge dominant discourses, opening up new ways of thinking and being. There is also a resource list for educators and parents interested in incorporating artworks into children’s learning.

Amalia Pica’s ‘A ∩ B ∩ C’ (2013). © Amalia Pica. I found this bad boy on the Guggenheim online archive.

“It is not that the artist offers solutions or gives directions. He nudges; he renders us uneasy; he makes us (if we are lucky) see what we would not have seen without him. He moves us to imagine, to look beyond” Maxine Greene (2000, p. 276).

Artworks can be used in many ways for many different reasons in learning contexts. They offer rich possibilities for experiencing and imagining the world from new and multiple perspectives. Visual art as well as the arts more generally, have the ability to make people aware of different ways of thinking and being in the world, working against reductionist and singular ways of thinking.

Maxine Greene (2000) extends upon the word of John Dewey (1916, 1934, 1954) to argue that imagination and the arts play a critical role in the making of democratic communities. She suggests that school curriculum should aim to prioritise the ‘releasing of the imagination’ through providing rich aesthetic experiences for children. These then provide new modalities for children to sense, experience and learn through the world.

However, the mere presence of artworks in a learning environment does not guarantee that a child is encountering or imagining the world in new ways. Greene argues that if school curriculum is to support imagination through the arts, children’s encounters need to be aesthetically varied, rich and reflective. Through this, learning through artworks has the potential to challenge dominant discourses and ways of thinking. This may then encourage children to question their understandings and assumptions about the world, to think critically about what is and what could be.

Below is a list of resources for educators and parents who may be interested in incorporating artworks in children’s learning at home or in the classroom.

Resource list 

Many of the major modern and contemporary art museums have online digital archives for their collections. Here are some links to my favorites:

Online art museum collections

• MoMA’s online collection

The Museum of Modern Art has made 77,000 works from 25,000 different artists available online. The search engine is easy to use and you can refine your hits using different classifications and time periods.

• The Tate online collection

Tate also have an extensive online collection featuring artworks, exhibitions, videos and artist journals. The digital archive is well referenced and has many tags that are great for getting lost in amazing artwork worm-holes. The search engine is easy to use and has lots of search filter options. Tate’s most famous artworks feature extensive summaries, a copy of the artwork’s display caption as well as the techniques used to produce the artwork, for example Marcel Duchamp’s ‘Fountain’ page. 

• The Guggenheim also has an extensive digital archive.

Video Channels

• TateShots  and TateTalks– Tate have also put together two quite an exceptional collection of video and audio recordings. TateTalks features video footage of talks and events held at the art museum. TateShots comprises of artist interviews, performance pieces (I highly recommend watching Earle Brown’s ‘Calder Piece‘), exhibition films and artist studio visits. If I had a dollar for every minute I spent watching TateShots I would be a millionaire. But I work in children’s education and the arts so maybe I shouldn’t put a monetary value on the amount of time I procrastinate.
• The Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark has a constantly growing online collection of videos from different fields such as art, architecture, music, literature and design. I love the Louisiana Channel as it features a lot of Scandinavian and European contemporary artists who I have only discovered through watching these clips.
• The art auction houses of Southeby’s and Christie’s both have YouTube channels featuring short video clips of artist interviews, studio visits and world auction records.

Online courses

• MoMA has developed three online courses that explore inquiry-led learning through artworks. Admittedly I have not had a chance to do any of these courses but I think it worth a look. The first, ‘Art & Ideas: Teaching with Themes’ uses theme-based teaching practices to support educators in incorporating modern and contemporary artworks into curriculum. Then there is Art & Inquiry: Museum Teaching Strategies For Your Classroom looks at museum education strategies for inquiry-based teaching and how these can be used in classrooms. Finally, Art & Activity: Interactive Strategies for Engaging with Art builds on content from courses one and two to explore activity-based strategies for using artworks primary and secondary lesson plans.

Article

• Here is a link to Dr. Emily Pringle’s article on ‘The Artist as Educator: Examining Relationships between Art Practice and Pedagogy in the Gallery Context.’ Emily is Head of Learning Practice & Research at Tate & also my awesome co-PhD supervisor.

References

Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and Education. New York, Macmillan.

Dewey, J. (1934). Art as Experience. New York, Minton, Balch.

Dewey, J. (1954). The Public and Its Problems. Chicago, IL: Swallow Press.

Greene, M (2000). ‘Imagining futures: the public school and possibility,’ Journal of Curriculum Studies, vol 32(2). P.267-280.

The role of materials in children’s learning through art

This post discusses the possibilities of materials and material play in children’s learning through art. I draw on the theories of loose parts and new materialism to argue that materials, including artworks, play an active and participatory role in opening-up divergent thinking and inquiry-led learning in schools, home and informal learning contexts such as art museums.

Why do materials matter?

Materials and material exploration have long been a part of artistic inquiry. Since Frobel’s development of the kindergarten in the late 1700’s, they have also held an important place in early childhood settings. In the 1970’s Simon Nicholson presented the theory of loose parts – the proposition that young children’s creative empowerment comes from the presence of open-ended materials that can be constructed, manipulated and transformed through self-directed play. It is fair to say that material content, including artworks and art materials, hold tremendous possibilities for facilitating children’s inquiry-led learning in new and divergent ways. I consider materials to be one of multiple forces that learning can emerge from in an art museums. Others may include social interaction between people, spatial layout of things and the delivery of curatorial content such as through audio guides or information resources.

As reading and writing are often privileged in school curriculum, experimentation with different materials can provide new opportunities for alternate and aesthetically-driven pedagogies to be produced (check out this blog for how I define pedagogy). This is to say that different materials may encourage different ways of thinking, learning and being. For example, in a previous posts on ‘suggesting as a technique for facilitating children’s learning through art’ I talk about the different cognitive, social, emotional and aesthetic learning pathways that two different materials: plastic cylinders and large paper sheets may present. Whilst the cylinders may provoke explorations around stacking, placing, dismantling, balancing, arrangement and construction, the large paper sheet may suggest gentle movements, swaying, rolling, folding, hiding and enveloping. Through experimentation, the properties and abilities of a material may change, creating new starting points for further inquiry and experimentation.

The active role of materials in art practices and learning

In the arts, different materials such as paint, clay, paper, resin, fabric, wood or plastic can be experimented with in a myriad of ways. In art forms such as dance, live art and socially engaged practices, materials may be slightly more abstract such as the human body, sound, participants and society. I believe that art materials are not just a tool for self-expression or a thing for children to manipulate; they are an active and participatory force in the production of learning and knowledge. For example, check out this lovely video by visual artist Shirazeh Houshiary in which she talks about the active role of materials in her practice:

I really connect with this, especially the comment: “… they are not representation of the form but a pulsation of the form. I am not interested in painting. I am not interested in the processes of making in the conventional sense of representation. I am trying to get into how something works. This process has taught me a huge amount about who I am, which is surprising. It a process of learning for me more than anything else.” The paint and paintings are active, participatory and dynamic in the artist’s creative experimentation.

Art materials as an invitation to experiment

Material play has the ability to encourage emergent thinking processes, allowing children to produce new understandings as well as experiencing the world from multiple perspectives. However, materials also have the ability to be used in static and predictable ways that shut down creativity and divergent thinking. Whilst I do love Instagram feeds and craft blogs that share ideas for children’s art activities, I am cautious that these may unintentionally encourage imitation and fixed ways of using materials with children. This may then reduce the ability for experimental thinking and practices to emerge.

The challenge to me – and everyone working in learning settings with children – is to keep experimenting, keep questioning, keep venturing into the unknown and the yet-to-be-discovered of art, play, materiality and pedagogy.

I am sure many of you have really interesting insights on this topic and it would be lovely to hear them. Why is children’s play with materials important to you? What are your favorite materials to experiment with?

Further links

The Institute of Making at the University College of London has a great online material library – perfect for anyone who likes to nerd out about different material forms: http://www.instituteofmaking.org.uk/materials-library

My friend Nina Odegard has written a brilliant article on children’s learning with recycled ‘junk’ materials. Nina formally ran a creative recycle centre in Norway: http://www.academia.edu/14201590/When_matter_comes_to_matter_working_pedagogically_with_junk_materials

Professor Pat Thomson, Nina Odegard and I recently did a conference symposium on children’s material play. Check it out: https://louisapenfold.com/2017/12/06/childrens-learning-with-new-found-and-recycled-stuff-symposium-at-aare/

Here is the link to my blog post on Simon Nicholson’s theory of loose parts: https://louisapenfold.com/2016/05/23/simon-nicholson-on-the-theory-of-loose-parts/

I also love the book ‘Encounters with Materials in Early Childhood Education’ by Veronica Pacini-Ketchabaw, Sylvia Kind and Laurie Kocher.

The Children’s Sensory Art Lab with the Slow Art Collective at C3 Gallery, Australia

This post looks at the Slow Art Collective’s ‘Children’s Sensory Lab’ (January 8-21, 2017) at C3 Gallery in Melbourne, Australia.

Last week I visited the Children’s Sensory Art Lab at C3 Gallery in Melbourne, Australia. The lab was created Dylan Martorell and Chaco Kato from the Slow Art Collective – an interdisciplinary artistic group dedicated to exploring creative practices and the ethics of environmental sustainability, materiality, DIY culture and participation. The collective describe ‘slow art’ as:

“… the slow exchanges of value rather than the fast, monetary exchange of value. It is about the slow absorption of culture through community links by creating something together and blurring the boundary between the artists and viewer. It is a sustainable arts practice, not an extreme solution; a reasonable alternative to deal with real problems in contemporary art practice.” (Slow Art Collective website)

The Sensory Art Lab featured six different material environments spread out over the C3 Gallery space. These included a dedicated room for babies and toddlers, a giant loom and an archery area where children could shoot arrows at drum symbols (pics below)! A commonality between the activities was a focus on art making or aesthetic exploration through art. The Lab had an endearingly D.I.Y feel to it. Many of the materials were either recycled or everyday items being used in unfamiliar ways, giving a slightly eclectic and ingenious atmosphere to the show.

My favourite activity was the loom, a simple concept with high creative potential. The design of the weaving apparatus encouraged social interaction between people making textiles, opening up the possibility for new connections between people, materials and things.

Below are some pictures from the show. The collective also have a great website featuring all of their projects. Check it out:  https://www.slowartcollective.com

The ‘audible touch space’ – an area designed especially for children aged 1-2 years and their carers. Babies and toddlers were able to touch the silver triangles that had motion sensors connected to them with pre-programmed sounds

I loved this giant ‘archi-loom.’ The Slow Art Collective did a spectacular version of this at Art Play a few years ago.

A bucket of material off-cuts, ribbons, wool and thread

The archery area – children could fire arrows at the drum symbols, making loud bangs of sound

In this activity, children could make paper basketballs then throw them at the drum kits.  Each snare drum (I think this is what they are called?!) was set at a different pitch, making different bass notes as the balls hit them.

NGV Triennal in Melbourne, Australia

This post looks at the National Gallery of Victoria’s slick new ‘Triennal’ blockbuster exhibition, including the gallery’s dedicated children’s space ‘Hands on: We make carpet for kids.’

I have spent the past few weeks in my hometown of Melbourne, Australia escaping the bleak English winter. During this time I have been fortunate enough to break up my thesis writing with beach swims and time with family and friends.

Last week I headed into Southbank to checked out the National Gallery of Victoria’s new contemporary art exhibition, Triennial. The exhibition is the first of what I presume will be a series of exhibitions held every three years that aim to showcase ‘the world of art and design now.’ The day I visited, the gallery was absolutely heaving with visitors young and old. I had actually never seen so many people inside an Australian art museum before. It was great to see the gallery so full of life.

The Triennial features an array of new modern and contemporary artwork from around the globe. There are also a bunch of newly commissioned, super slick, very Instagram-able installations including Kusama’s ‘Flower obsession,’ Ron Mueck’s ‘Mass,’ teamLab’s “Moving creates vortices and vortices create movement’ and Alexandra Kehayoglou’s beautiful ‘Santa Cruz River.’ The show is ambitious, polished and lively.

Pictured: teamLab ‘Moving creates vortices and vortices create movement’ (2017)

Yayoi Kusama ‘Flower Obsession’ (2017)

Ron Mueck ‘Mass’ (2016-2017)

The Triennial’s dedicated children’s space, ‘Hands on: We make carpet for kids’ (2017) was comprised of four parts: a colourful wall where children could stick on triangular velcro pieces, a ‘maze challenge’ where children could poke pieces of rope through a plywood wall, an area where children could stick styrofoam pool noodles onto wooden knobs and a floor activity where children could make patterns using colourful wooden triangles (pics below). At first glance, the space looked immaculate. Lots of colours, beautiful wall-mounted installations for children to look at. The space was packed with young families who all seemed to be having lots of fun. It was also really inspiring to see the gallery making such significant financial investments in children’s activities. There appeared to be a gallery staff member stationed at each section greeting people and sorting materials.

At the same time I felt like something fundamental was missing from the children’s activities. While in the space I began to consider what exactly it is I love about art and learning. To me, the arts and education have allowed me to continuously think about and connect with the world in new and different ways. Artistic experimentation has allowed me to produce new relationships between myself, other people, ideas and the world around me. Looking at the children’s activities, I felt like there were limited opportunities for children to engage in deep artistic and creative experimentation. For example, in the rope activity, children were presented with small pieces of the material all cut to the same length. An instruction sign told people to put the rope into the holes. What children can and cannot do is nearly entirely pre-constructed and fixed.

I am really interested in children’s learning environments that are designed to encourage creative experimentation and are responsive to what emerges from this. For example, selecting materials based on their ability to transform (for example, clay has the ability to change form through adding or removing water), introducing art tools, equipment, artistic techniques or different conceptual resources that could encourage people to extend, challenge and complexify their thinking through art over time.

At the same time, everyone seemed to be having fun and perhaps that is the most important thing. Also, due to the sheer volume of visitors, the gallery may not have been able to cope with children spending more than two minutes on each activity.

The NGV Triennial is a fun museum experience. There are also some incredible artworks in the exhibition. High-brow theme park or contemporary art show – you decide!

‘Children’s learning with new, found and recycled stuff’ symposium at AARE

This post discusses the symposium presentation ‘Material play: children’s learning with new, found and recycled ‘stuff’ given by Professor Pat Thomson, Nina Odegard and Louisa Penfold at the Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE) in Canberra, Australia.

Image: Bradley Cummings

On November 27, 2017 Pat Thomson (University of Nottingham), Nina Odegard (University College of Oslo and Akershus) and myself (University of Nottingham) presented at the AARE conference on young children’s learning with materials through play. Julianne Moss from Deakin University was the session discussant. The symposium was put together as a result of our common research interest in material-led play in early childhood education.

The symposium was built upon the proposition that many educators and artists working with young children are committed to play-based practices and understand this as critical to individual and social learning. The session focused specifically on early years arts-orientated play through asking: when children are ‘doing art’ play what are they learning with the materials they choose? The presentations explored the idea that when children are playing with materials they are simultaneously:

• learning about concepts such as line, pattern and form;
• learning about the properties and potentials of materials such as how they can be pushed, pilled, stretched and transformed;
• learning what materials are and do in the world;
• being called and directed by the materials, forming possible selves with materials and forming new relations with the world
• being given the possibilities to work with materials without having to name, define or categorize what they are doing

Why is this important? Academics and education practitioners are becoming increasingly interested in ways that humans can and need to be de-centred in order to take account of the importance the material, both organic and inorganic, worlds in which we live. This is essential in creating discourses and practices that offer hopeful action in an ecologically and ethically challenged world. This also comes at a time when policy makers around the world increasingly position play-based early childhood curriculum as trivial and not sufficiently focused on knowledge and skills. Consequentially, we identify an urgent need to push further with discussion on why materials matter in early childhood play-based arts programmes and projects. Our concern was to not only explore and explain the importance of play in early childhood and to promote the value of the arts, but also to broaden our explanations of what this is.

Young children’s thinking with natural materials in art museums

Image: Louisa Penfold

Louisa’s presentation explored the invitations natural materials such as logs, leaves, sticks, stones and clay offer in young children’s play in art museums. Data generated in an early year’s art studio session at the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, was used to consider the encounters (Pacini-Ketchabaw et al., 2017) between children, artists, curators, artworks, materials and the museum space. Lenz-Taguchi’s notion of intra-active pedagogies (2010) – where one’s attention shifts from interpersonal relationships to the relations between humans and non-human entities – was drawn upon to consider children’s learning with and through artworks and materials in the art museum.

Descriptive examples of visual documentation including photography and video footage was discussed in relation to how the ‘stuff’ curated for the art studio provoked open-ended possibilities for children’s thinking and learning. The presentation concluded with the suggestion that through thinking with materials, new pedagogies are able to be constructed that allow artists, learning curators, children and their families to continuously produce and reconsider the relations between themselves, others, artworks, materials and the natural world.

Imagining immanent didactics

Image: Louisa Penfold

Nina’s paper focused on the concepts of aesthetics and aesthetic explorations, ethics and how these open possibilities for creative thinking, doing and being. Concepts of new materialism were discussed in relation to the potential they bring for expanded discourses and practices relating to recycling, sustainability and consumption.

The presentation drew upon data generated in a ReMida creative recycle centre in Norway. Results suggested that children were ‘rhizomatic thinkers’ (Dahlberg, 2016, p. 131) in their aesthetic explorations of recycled materials in which children’s learning shifted between disciplines to make use of the ‘vibrant matter’ (Bennet, 2010) and ‘how matter comes to matter’ (Barad, 2008). Nina also focused on pedagogical practice in which children’s process itself is valued, and there is a reduced or no focus on the result (Dahlberg, 2016). This builds on previous research out of the ReMida centre (Odegard, 2016) that argued that recycled materials can open up to the discovery of new ‘hidden’ pedagogical spaces, that produce meeting places for the emergence of new ideas (Odegard, 2012). The children´s exploration with vibrant matter like recycled materials seems to evoke creativity, curiosity, problem-solving and narrate stories. Through this, the paper argued for a paradigm shift away from the neoliberal way of measuring and categorizing learning and towards an emphasis on the collective and creative pedagogical processes.

What can rope do with us? Agency/power and freedom/captivity in art play.

Image: Bradley Cummings

Pat’s paper, co-written with Anton Franks, discussed an ongoing ethnographic study conducted within the ‘World without walls’ programme run by Serpentine Galleries in London. The programme supports artists undertaking residencies in one early childhood centre in central London. The residencies focus on different kinds of art/play that draw upon the artist’s practice and selection of materials for the programme. The presentation discussed data generated from Albert Potrony’s residency in which the artist elected to use large material objects such as card, plastic, foam and rope.

Throughout the sessions, numerous children were drawn to/called by the rope (Bennett, 2010). Perhaps unexpectedly, the children wrapped/tied up their teachers and the learning curator with the rope. The data suggested an explicit exploration of the kinds of power-laden relationships that exist between adults and children in educational settings. Drawing on field notes, photographs and interviews, the paper presented an analysis of the materials on offer and their affordances. The presentation concluded considering the material differences made by, with and through the rope, and probe further the ways in which it co-produced caring and ethical experimentations with power, agency, captivity and freedom.

Following the presentations, attendees had an opportunity to play with an array of materials arranged in the symposium space. As a group we then asked and explored questions such as why were particular materials chosen and not others? What was possible with the materials and what wasn’t? What about the play experience can be put into words and what can’t? Did you feel a desire/need to name, categorize or define your installation? What senses were used, and what feelings were evoked through playing with the materials?

Overall, we hoped that the symposium shared thinking and opened up new discussions around early childhood education, play, the arts and materialism. We were inspired by the questions and discussion amongst the group throughout the presentation and hope to build upon this in the future.

Image: Bradley Cummings

Image: Bradley Cummings

References

Barad, K. (2008). Posthumanist performativity: toward an understanding of how matter comes to matter. In S. Alaimo & S. J. Hekman (Eds.), Material feminisms (pp. 120-157). Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

Bennet, J. (2010). Vibrant matter, a poltical ecology of things: Duke University Press.

Dahlberg, G. (2016). An ethico- aesthetic paradigm as an alternative discourse to the quality assurance discourse. 17(1), 124-133. doi:10.1177/1463949115627910

Lenz Taguchi, H. (2010). Going beyond the theory/practice divide in early childhood education: Introducing an intra-active pedagogy. New York, NY: Routledge.

Odegard, N. (2012). When matter comes to matter – Working pedagogically with junk materials. Education Inquiry, 3(3), 387-400.

Odegard, Nina, & Rossholt, Nina. (2016). In-between spaces. Tales from a Remida. In Ann Beate Reinertsen (Ed.), Becoming Earth. A Post Human Turn in Educational Discourse Collapsing Nature/Culture Divides. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.

Pacini-Ketchabaw, V; Kind, S; & Kocher, L. (2017). Encounters with materials in early childhood education. New York, NY: Routledge.

Serpentine Galleries’ Play as Radical Practice toolkit

This post looks at Serpentine Galleries’ ‘Play as Radical Practice’ toolkit, a creative resource produced between the Gallery’s learning team, artist Albert Potrony and the Portman Early Childhood Centre (UK).

Image credit: Serpentine Galleries

In 2014, the Serpentine learning team commenced a series of artist residencies with the Portman Early Childhood Centre in Westminster, London (UK) run as part of their Changing Play programme. Changing Play aims to explore the possibilities of play through exploring current practices and alternate re-considerations of early childhood education.

Last year, artist Albert Potrony undertook a 12-week residency at the Portman as part of the programme in which he worked collaboratively with children, staff, parents and Serpentine to explore the potential of free play in the school system. Throughout the residency, Albert created a series of material-led play spaces featuring matter such as recycled tubes, plastic sheets, ropes and reflective plastics. During the sessions, children were encouraged to creatively explore the materials alongisde peers and adults through play. Before, during and after each session, the artist, Portman staff, parents and Gallery team engaged in critically reflective discussions that considered the relationships between the programme’s various components such as the materials, curriculum, people and pedagogical underpinnings. The ‘Play as Radical Practice’ toolkit is a direct product of these collaborative discussions.

The toolkit is comprised of three main parts: a booklet, a 24-piece card game (pictured below) and an accompanying film. These work together to share and further consider the imagery, questions and ideas generated from the residency. The toolkit also seeks to support early educators to form solidarities with the children they work with and to advocate for free play in the state school system. This is done through taking a individuals taking position as well as including thoughts and questions from multiple perspectives.

I really like the way the card game explores the residency’s emergent debates and ideas from multiple perspectives including children, parents, curators, the artist and centre staff. Each of the cards in the game features an image and provocation such as field notes, a quote and/or question. For example, one card combines an image of a child and staff member playing with the artist’s materials in the nursery. A quote from a Portman staff member is then presented alongside the image with four interconnected questions:

” ‘They are different children with different members of staff. It’s really interesting, when you read the school reports you think ‘I don’t see him like that at all.’ He may be really chatty with me and really quiet with someone else and also the children behave differently depending on who is present, which is that thing about stepping away from them and letting them play by themselves as part of that witnessing.’ Staff

What is witnessing? Who does it? What does it mean? Witnessing as assessment?  “

These work together to situate the emergence of the educator’s idea around the standardisation of learning within the specific context that it was produced. Furthermore, the card invites the reader, or ‘player’ of the card game, to extend, challenge or support the teacher’s experience through critically thinking about the questions themselves.

Each card is further divided into key themes such as space, relationships, standardisation and chaos/order. Each one of these themes prompts deeper consideration and re-considerations around the imagery, quotes and questions featured in the toolkit. The accompanying booklet investigates these themes more extensively alongside quotes from key early childhood and play theorists such as Hillevi Lenz-Taguchi, Tim Gill, Simon Nicholson and Arthur Battram. You may also come across the introduction I wrote for the toolkit in the booklet, lol. I do wish to point out that my role on the programme is insignificant in comparison to the amazing educators, curators, artists, children and parents who worked together on an ongoing basis to produce the complex conversations, thinking and practices throughout the residency.

The toolkit booklet can be downloaded from the Serpentine website here. A limited number of printed toolkits are available free of charge from the Serpentine learning team. For a copy, please email: jemmae@serpentinegalleries.org . The Play As Radical Practice film will be available to view on the Serpentine website in the near future. An interim report of Serpentine’s World Without Walls programme, including Changing Play, can also be downloaded from the University of Nottingham’s Centre for Research in Arts, Creativity and Literacies website here: worldwithoutwalls_interimresearchreport_final-copy

Bruno Munari: “inventor, artist, writer designer, architect, illustrator and player-with-children”

This post explores the work of Italian artist, Bruno Munari (1907-1998). Munari was a self-proclaimed ‘inventor artist writer designer architect illustrator player-with-children’ (The Independent, 1998) whose creative practice intertwined with the educational philosophies of Jean Piaget and Maria Montessori. 

“It hasn’t always been easy for me to make people take me seriously. I play with children. And, in a society such as ours, anyone who plays or works with children runs the risk of being thought eccentric.” Munari

“Understanding what art is, is a (useless) concern of the adult. Understanding how you do it instead, is a genuine interest in the child.” Munari

Bruno Munari was a man whose work could never be defined. He created and invented prolifically across mediums and methods diverse as paper, painting, sculpture, toys, photography, film, education, fine art and graphic design. The quirky objects, furniture, books, pictures and workshops he created encouraged learning through tactile, physical and kinaesthetic play. Whilst Munari’s work is often associated with the Italian Futurist movement of the 1920’s, he also drew heavily from Surrealism’s vibrant pallets and the Bauhaus’ geometric forms. Munari’s uncontrolable inventiveness led him to create outlandish bodies of work including an entire series of useless machines and an equally brilliant succession of ‘useless’ unreadable books.

Munari encouraged children to learn about the world through touching and playing with materials and things. Possibly one of his most well-known interventions was his Tactile Workshop series. In these Murani in worked with groups of young children to experiment with touch as an exploration of material’s properties and artistic concepts. Documentation of these workshops can be found in his appropriately named publication, The Tactile Workshops.

Below is a selection of Munari’s experiments run with children. These clips are in Italian but are quite straight forward even with a limited understanding of the language… and are visually rich and interesting to watch. Divertiti!

Further links

MunArt A website (official or unofficial, I am unsure!) dedicated to the work of Bruno Munari

MEF Museo Ettore Fico’s ‘Bruno Munari; Total Artist’ exhibition website. The exhibition was presented from February 16 – June 11, 2017. Scroll down the webpage to view installation images from the show.

In conversation with Reggio Australia’s Chris Celada on art, galleries and the Hundred Languages of Children

This post is an extract of a conversation between myself and Chris Celada published in the current edition of ‘The Challenge,’ Reggio Emilia Australia’s quarterly journal. Chris is a teacher and Reggio Australia editorial board member. The article accompanied a case study in which I discussed the pedagogical and artistic underpinnings of an early year’s paint/coverage art studio, or ‘atelier’, run as part of my PhD fieldwork. The Atelier was shaped around an inquiry into Peter Lanyon’s ‘Glide Path’ painting. This conversation offered both Chris and I the opportunity to dig deeper into the philosophies, strategies and practices of working at the intersection of art and pedagogy. 

Chris Celada: I am excited about the opportunity your article offers for deeper thinking and reflection. For many teachers, art is a ‘problem’ seeing themselves as not ‘artistic’. They provide ‘art’ experiences for children but perhaps do not recognise the power of ‘art’ to influence/ construct/challenge thinking for the children but also for themselves – to experience the power of ‘languages’. It is for these reasons that I think your article is very powerful. As I read your article, a variety of ‘questions’/ points of interest came to mind and I would be interested in what you might like to consider further as well. So as they say, let’s start at the beginning!

I saw links between your processes and those from the Reggio Emilia approach that I have read about, observed and now seek to practise. In particular, I noticed the cross-over with the project Children, Art, Artists: The Expressive Language of Children, the Artistic Language of Alberto Burri (Reggio Children, 2004) and Mosaic of marks words materials (Reggio Children, 2015).

You started your research with the adults considering Peter Lanyon’s painting ‘Glide Path.’ I discovered that this painting is one of a series of paintings made in response to his experiences as a glider pilot. When I knew that, I had a much more powerful way of entering into this painting. His larger body of work is beautiful and evocative, for example ‘Thermal’ (1960), ‘Drift’ (1961) and ‘Soaring flight’ (1960).

One reviewer compares the sudden changes in colours and textures, tilting axes and sharp changes in direction of marks in the paintings to the flight experience – an experience that in the end killed Lanyon. Another describes Lanyon as being “compelled to push things to extremes”, and rather than being concerned about form, space and colour, his painting are “about living and feeling outside the canvas”. Perhaps he would have felt empathy with Reggio Emilia where disruption and working in the unknown is so important.  Peter Lanyon ‘Glide path’ (1964). Oil on canvas.

The first area I would like to dig deeper into is the process of ‘reconnaissance’ that Malaguzzi describes in the The Hundred Languages of Children: The Reggio Emilia Approach (Edwards, Gandini & Forman, 1998, p. 88). How did the group’s decision to focus on ‘coverage’ and its relation to paint emerge from the ‘reconnaissance’ or pre-planning stage? I am curious to hear about the thinking and intentions in this process. Why was ‘Glide Path’ selected? What did you discover about line, form, shape and coverage in considering the painting? Why was ‘coverage’ selected as the focus? What is meant by ‘coverage’ when an artist talks about it? I look forward to reading your comments and what you are interested in discussing.

Louisa:  I really enjoyed reading your questions and thoughts, thank you for sending them through. This conversation is a great opportunity to reflect upon different ideas. To me, discussing theories and practices with others is very useful in bringing together different perspectives and expanding ideas. Or even a bit like shining a torch on different spaces that might not usually see the light!

Before I talk about Peter Lanyon and the Atelier, I will briefly mention some key ideas underpinning this work. At the core of this research/practice is an investigation into how art can be used to construct different ways of thinking. This may include new thought processes, different understandings and relations towards oneself, other people and non-human things like artworks, materials, space and culture. Then to continuously question these understandings, as well as the process of how we arrived at them. This is both a personal and collective process full of contradictions, politics, ethics and emotions… Extending upon this, here are some thoughts in response to your questions:

‘Glide Path’ captures a sensation of flow, freedom and elevated movement over surfaces, space and earth. For me, this painting cannot be reduced to a bird’s-eye representation of the English countryside. It is a feeling of turbulence, rushing motion and emotion, things colliding and intersecting in chaotic ways in a changing moment – a sense of soaring and drifting in unrestricted ways but always with the possibility of falling from a great height. This complexity of thought and affect offered a rich starting point for deeper collective inquiry amongst the team.

Lanyon’s use of paint made it a natural fit to bring into the Atelier as it presented the possibilities for rich tactile and sensory experiences for young children and their families. As a team, we were not solely interested in teaching children about the techniques and properties of paint, such as how to roll it or how to use a paint brush, although these are very important, but to also consider the thought process that this material might provoke, how it might challenge children and their families to think differently through experimenting with it. We were thinking about what a material or artwork may suggest or invite…

‘Glide Path’ offered many possibilities to connect and explore an array of artistic concepts such as line, form and shape. There was something in the combination of ‘coverage’ and ‘flying’ that made a particularly strong pairing worthy of deeper investigation. The action of ‘covering’ seemed intricately connected to a feeling of gliding. Just like the wind changes a glider’s speed from rapid to slow, thought patterns and making in the Atelier continuously flux through different rhythms too – from grand outbursts of paint pouring to gentle drips, quiet consideration and stillness. Like the creative process, the act of gliding is unpredictable – plunging into the unknown, an awareness of freedom, movement but also the possibility of stagnation, disappointment and falling.

The concept of ‘coverage’ was approached as an invitation for children and their families to think with and through. Evidencing a linear relationship between introducing the concept and a child ‘learning what this is’ was never the goal. Instead we began to consider the possibilities for research – social, emotional, aesthetic and intellectual research – with and through the concept and the material.

Such explorations of ‘coverage’ are also philosophical ones. What is presented? What is concealed and protected? What is revealed? How does someone or something transform through different layers being taken away or others being positioned on top? What new relations can be construction between coverage, paint and other complexities of the world?

Chris: I greatly enjoyed reading your comments which set my mind whirling! And I realised that my thinking is intimately connected to experience as is yours! When I looked at a wide selection of Lanyon paintings, the one chosen for the Atelier was not my ‘favourite’. Somehow the colours were ‘wrong’! I found some of the others allowed me to ‘feel’ the movement of the to-ing and fro-ing of the glider; to feel what I imagined as the ‘peace’ of being up in the sky, but lines covering blocks of colour, what appears to be areas where very thin layers have been added over other colours, or maybe colour has been ‘removed’ to give that effect. The idea of bringing ‘coverage’ and ‘flying’ together was new for me and very powerful. I have just returned from Europe and I ‘covered’ a lot of sky during the various flights. We had to fly from Dubai to Cyprus. The plane was making deliberate zigzag patterns to stay well away from firstly Yemen, then Syria – in no sense was this the shortest route. We covered a lot of ground. I started to think about the ‘coverage’ I create each day – in my home, at work, in my town, then the ‘coverage’ I create in/of ideas, feelings and relations. I was then reminded of the phrase often used in education in relation to the curriculum ‘we need to cover this/that topic’ so for me the initial question of ‘what is meant by coverage’ has moved far, far away from a lineal concept and now has brought the fonts of knowing spoken about by Reggio Emilia together – ideas around rationality, emotion, imagination and aesthetics and their interconnections and interrelationships that are unpredictable and that have the possibility to disrupt one another.

‘Glide Path’ was more of, as you say, a bumpy ride, unexpected turbulence. Not my ‘preferred’ experience! However, I found that feeling the pleasurable flights in the other paintings, helped me to return to this one and maybe to be willing to have a bumpy ride, a moment of ‘excitement??’, maybe what people call ‘being truly alive.’ I came to realise that I couldn’t look at this painting in isolation, but only in relation to his other pieces. Seeing ‘Glide Path’ in the context of the larger body of work tells a more complex story.

The concept of ‘coverage’ is intriguing. If I look just at this painting I notice one colour covering another, lines covering blocks of colour, what appears to be areas where very thin layers have been added over other colours, or maybe colour has been ‘removed’ to give that effect. The idea of bringing ‘coverage’ and ‘flying’ together was new for me and very powerful. I have just returned from Europe and I ‘covered’ a lot of sky during the various flights. We had to fly from Dubai to Cyprus. The plane was making deliberate zigzag patterns to stay well away from firstly Yemen, then Syria – in no sense was this the shortest route. We covered a lot of ground. I started to think about the ‘coverage’ I create each day – in my home, at work, in my town, then the ‘coverage’ I create in/of ideas, feelings and relations. I was then reminded of the phrase often used in education in relation to the curriculum ‘we need to cover this/that topic’ so for me the initial question of ‘what is meant by coverage’ has moved far, far away from a lineal concept and now has brought the fonts of knowing spoken about by Reggio Emilia together – ideas around rationality, emotion, imagination and aesthetics and their interconnections and interrelationships that are unpredictable and that have the possibility to disrupt one another.

Louisa: For me, Lanyon’s desire to take flight into the unknown as well as the act of distrupting thinking are such powerful human actions that take take real courage to enact. They require a will to let go and not to control; walking into the unknown, into the unfamiliar, the unidentifiable or perhaps swimming out into the ocean until your feet are just off the ground. That’s scary! But it is also where the exciting stuff happens…

continued in ‘The Challenge.’ 

The full version of this article has been published and distributed by Reggio Emilia Australia Information Exchange. To order a copy of the article, you can contact REAIE at: admin@reggioaustralia.org.au or at REAIE 442 Auburn Rd, Hawthorn, Victoria, 3122, Australia.

References 

Reggio Children. (2004). Children, Art, Artists. the expressive languages of children, the artistic language of Alberto Burri. Reggio Emilia: Reggio Children.

Reggio Children. (2015). Mosaic of Marks Words Material. Reggio Emilia: Istituzione of the Municipality of Reggio Emilia.

Art + humanism + societal change

The Italian Renaissance (1400-1600 A.D.) was a period of monumental cultural and social change. The movement saw the resurgence of humanistic values, a philosophy that focused on the potential and possibilities of humanity in shaping the structures, beliefs and activities of society as opposed to a reliance on Christian doctrine. Religious beliefs were not entirely dismissed. Rather, the worth and value of individual and collective humans was progressively acknowleded for the contribution they make to the shaping of knowledge and values.

Giovanni Bellini ‘Madonna and Child with St.John the Baptist and a Saint John.’ (1500-1504). Oil on panel.

During the Renaissance many philosophers, writers, musicians and artists began to explore this system of thought. Classical texts and art forms were used as references to support people’s learning and development. Wealthy patrons started to collect books and natural artefacts as a representation of their education and worldliness. A deep connection emerged between humanistic values, the arts and societal transformation. Visual artists closely associated with the early Renaissance include Giovanni Bellini, Andrea Mantegna, Masaccio, Fra Angelico and Antonello da Messina to name a small few. These artists created deeply symbolic paintings that explored the complexity and richness of these new-found understandings. Art became a site for humanistic discourse.

So why am I writing about this on my children’s art and pedagogy blog? Well, the epistemological connections between the Italian Renaissance and my practice/research are strong and congruent. My research expands upon socio-cultural learning theory, an educational approach that emphasises the specific social, cultural and historical context that knowledge is produced. This also explores the contribution individuals make to their learning, development and growth.

Giovanni Bellini ‘Madonna in the Meadow’ (1500). Oil on panel. Image credit: National Gallery of Art

Take Giovanni Bellini’s ‘Madonna in the Meadow’ (pictured above). The female figure is sitting in the rural landscape of Northern Italy nursing her child. All symbols of ethereal divinity, such as the heavens and gold rays, have been removed and replaced with a scene of provincial life. To me, the painting connects the internal world of the woman with the everyday events happening in the landscape. This suggests that the development of her spiritual, emotional and intellectual being is deeply intertwined with her own human experience and not being determined from above. Such a proposition supports an understanding of human growth as being actively constructed within an individual.

The connection between art, education and society is a deep and enduring one. Humanism suggests that societal change begins with individual transformations catalysed by both intrinsic and extrinsic factors. This process emphasises an individual’s responsibility in the actions they take, the decisions they make and the beliefs they construct as opposed to a dependence on tradition, authority and dogma. Carl Rogers, the great human-centred psychologist (Mia Vainio I will forever be indebted to you for introducing me to Rogerian theory) expanded upon this trail of thinking in the construction of his person-centred approach to therapy. John Dewey incessantly intertwined humanistic values in his writings on education, art and culture.

Further Links

National Gallery of Art website (2017) Italian Renaissance Learning Resources (NB: this is ace)

Goffen, R (1989). Giovanni Bellini. Yale University Press, New Haven.

Khan Academy website (2017). The Renaissance in Venice resource. (

Family learning at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park (UK)

This post features an interview with Emma Spencer, Family Learning Coordinator at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park (UK). 

Image credit: Jane Hewitt

The Yorkshire Sculpture Park sits upon 500 acres of jolly green parkland that an Australian who has never visited rural England may be pitifully excited to see. The open-air gallery won the 2014 Art Fund Prize for Museum of the Year and is also home to the National Arts Education Archive. In 2014 the Park was awarded a three- year grant from the Paul Hamlyn Foundation to conduct an action-research project looking at the development of its family-learning programme. I recently spoke with Emma Spencer about the project’s findings and future plans for early years learning at the gallery.

Could you please give some background on the action research project? What were your initial ideas and motivations?

Starting out, the key focus of the research was around bringing people from the community together with the Park. We wanted to use the project to change how we connect with families. Families come to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park regardless to experience the beautiful natural space, however we really wanted to think about creating a more considered and in-depth offer for families. The focus of the research has changed slightly over time, especially in relation to how we used the early year’s space.

What happens in art galleries is quite distinctly different from what happens in science centres or natural history museums. This was a key consideration entering the research. We also wanted family’s experiences to be centred on the connection between nature and art.

The research project is now entering its third and final year. What have been the key findings to date?

The first year of the action-research project was focused upon looking at school-aged children and their connection with the Park. We wanted to use the first stage of research to understand how the Park can engage with families in new ways. So with these families we tried out various different activities to see what they liked, what they were interested in, how they behaved and different methods of engagement.

Image credit: Jane Hewitt

The family model that we use at YSP is one-on-one approach. So rather than being the whole family coming together, we encourage one parent to bring one child. So therefore the project was not looking at issues between siblings. Instead we wanted it to focus on and encourage really meaningful time between one child and their parent.

Data was collected over four half days at the sculpture park and four half days in the education settings. We worked with eight families from children’s centres and nurseries in Wakefield. All families involved in the initial stage of research had children aged two and up. Over the eight days we trialled different creative activities with the families. We then did in-depth evaluation on each activity that gave us incredible insight into participants experiences. We were then able to build these findings into the subsequent stages of research.

What types of programming have come out of these initial findings?

Coming out of the first stage of research we were able to identify what sorts of workshops we would need to offer, what resources we need to develop and what we need to do as an organization to engage families. Results indicated the following:

1. An enclosed children’s outdoor space is both wanted and needed;
2. Families need to make art in addition to looking at it;
3. Open-ended resources are essential in supporting families connection with art and nature;
4. Children behave better outside then inside and are not worried about the weather.

Leading on from this, the second stage of action research comprised of the development of a series of public events for families. These included drop-in days and school holiday activities. The major outcome of the research is the creation of a new family space for under 5’s called Hidden Forrest.

How did you work with artists on the project?

Bryony Pritchard was the main artist we worked with. Bryony has extensive experience in working in children’s art education and is a very reflective practitioner. A key responsibility of hers was designing the creative activities within Hidden Forrest and facilitating these activities on the day. These activities were essentailly provocations that connected children with nature and art.

When developing children’s  programmes it really helps to be collaborating with people who have have direct experience working with children and understand how they communicate and think. I did this earlier in my career and this gave me great insight which I was able to bring to my  current role that is more focused on research and development.

How has using the action-research process (planning, observing, interpreting and reflecting) benefited the programme’s development?

The difference between everyday practice and action research is that you are constantly thinking, reflecting and making changes. Of course everyone is reflective in this field but having it as a formal research project allowed us to really look at something critically. It un-sticks old patterns of practice and thinking within the organization. This can be particularly useful when working with staff who have been around for a long time – to challenge old ways of thinking.

I have always been a reflective practitioner. I also knew Bryony would be open to trying new things. Using action research allows us to development of an attitude of “if this does not work, this is okay.” This is a really freeing thing for practitioners. When things did not go so well we were able to reflect, discuss and then give ourselves permission to try it again with changes. For example we once tried the same program with a different audience with surprisingly different results.

Sometimes there is a lot of pressure on artists to do it well the first time as they are getting paid a lot of money (and so they should!). However there is an idea that these activties always need to be sparkly and everyone needs to have a fabulous time. The action research enabled us to explore and challenge many ideas around practice. We knew that we would possibly learn a lot of things when it went wrong.

Where do you hope to take the findings from the research? What is your future vision for family learning at YSP?

We are now entering our third year of the research project. The focus is not upon institution-wide training. An interesting thing about action research is that other teams can take findings and re-adjust them to fit with their own context. This training will focus upon things such as how staff talk to families and children who may have very little gallery experience. We hope to also create a regular offer for families.

Family engagement is not just about the learning team. These are institution-wide conversations that need to be had. It takes time to implement such change and to shape how we collectively engage with families.