Aesthetics Archives - Art. Play. Children. Learning.

Amazing artists and educators 23rd September 2020

An interview with artist Lorna Rose

This post features a video interview with artist Lorna Rose. She talks about her approach to creative learning, like the importance of flexibility, multiculturalism, and inclusivity in education. We live in a world of great cultural, social, and political diversity. As the great art educator Maxine Greene said, the arts play an integral role in the growth of social cohesion by encouraging children to empathize with others from different background. This week I spent two days at the Lillian de Lissa Children’s Centre & Nursery in Birmingham (UK) working alongside their artist-in-residence, Lorna Rose. 90% of the children attending the nursery are from an ethnic minority, over half speak English as a second language. Of the 90 children in attendance, 28 languages are spoken! The nursery’s vision is for children to leave the center with a sense of curiosity about the world. Lorna Rose has been working as the artist-in-residence at the centre for over…

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Children's creative spaces 18th November 2019

The ‘Atelier van Licht’ at the Centraal Museum, Utrecht

This post features a reflection on my visit to the Atelier van Licht at the Centraal Museum in Utrecht, The Netherlands. The Atelier was being presented as part of the museum’s Nice’n’Light exhibition that ran from 17 October 2015 – 24 January 2016. Above: Atelier van Licht at Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam. Image credit: Atelier van Licht A creative space for children’s play and experimentation with materials Back in February 2016, I travelled to the Netherlands to meet with Annemieke Huisingh, the founder of the wonderful Atelier van Licht. I was interested in learning more about the Atelier’s approach to designing children’s material-based creative learning environments. At the time, the Atelier (which is another word used to describe an artist’s studio) was on display at the Centraal Museum in Utrecht as part of a contemporary art show that was exploring artist’s experimentation with light. The Atelier had been designed for children of all ages…

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Learning 10th August 2019

Why art is important in children’s learning

Art can play an important part in children’s learning. This post shares five key reasons why. “Every child has the right to relax, play and take part in a wide range of cultural and artistic activities.” Article 31, United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child Many education theorists have argued that art has a central role in children’s learning and development. For example, John Dewey – the founder of American progressive education – argued for the need to integrate art into people’s everyday experiences. Eillot Eisner then talked about the criticality of art in public school curriculum and Maxine Greene wrote about its significance in allowing people to imagine the world from multiple perspectives. All of these amazing thinkers built their arguments on the same issue: that art has been marginalised from school curriculum in place of syllabus focused on maths, English, science and technology. A recent example of this can…

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Children's creative spaces 19th April 2019

Peabody Essex Museum’s Play Time exhibition

This post features an interview with Trevor Smith, curator of the Present Tense at Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts. Trevor is also curator of the museum’s current PlayTime exhibition. In our conversation, Trevor discusses the dynamic role of play in contemporary art and culture – a core theme driving the show. Play and artistic practice have a long and enduring history from Surrealist games that aimed to unlock subconscious creativity to more recent participatory live art practices. Play can be understood as a significant catalyst for artistic, social, cultural and technological change. The Peabody Essex Museum takes this rich conceptualization as a starting point for their PlayTime exhibition. The show features nearly forty works from renowned contemporary artists such as Lara Favaretto, Martin Creed, Teppei Kaneuji and Nick Cave. The museum has also put together a FANTASTIC PlayTime digital publication that is free to access online at playtime.pem.org. The publication includes contributions from distinguished artists, poets, writers…

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Materials 22nd February 2019

4 organisations exploring materials in innovative ways

This is a follow up to my recent post on the role of materials in children’s learning through art. If you have not read this already, I recommend checking it out before reading on. Here I present four different organisations – a university research centre, a design consultancy, a creative recycle centre and a children’s art studio – who are all exploring materiality in new and experimental ways. I selected these organisations as I am interested in thinking about how materials are being researched and considered in a collective way, among groups of people with diverse interests, skills and expertise. MIT Media Lab: Mediating Matter group (USA) I am a massive fan girl of the MIT Media Lab. For those of you who are not unfamiliar with this university research centre, it is an interdisciplinary lab ‘that encourages the unconventional mixing and matching of seemingly disparate research areas’ (MIT website, 2018).…

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Materials 2nd February 2019

What is 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 play an active and participatory role in opening-up children’s divergent thinking and inquiry-led learning. 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…

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Featured 3rd October 2018

3 tips for scaffolding children’s play with materials

Children’s play with materials is important as it allows them to think and learn in different ways. As a child’s creativity is always limited by what they do and do not know, scaffolding can open up new opportunities for more complex learning over time. Scaffolding is a term that was first coined by Vygotsky (1978) who described the process as something that allows children to move their current level of understandings to a more advanced one. This process helps children to undertake activities that they usually would not be able to without the help of others. Teachers and parents often do a lot of scaffolding in children’s lives. They teach children how to brush their teeth, share with others and read. Children’s peers, technology and information resource like a YouTube video can also scaffold children’s learning in different ways. Scaffolding is important in children’s play with materials as it allows…

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Amazing artists and educators 26th April 2018

Simon Nicholson’s theory of loose parts

In 1972 Simon Nicholson, the son of artists Ben Nicholson and Barbara Hepworth, presented the idea that young children’s cultural participation comes from the presence of open-ended ‘loose part’ materials that can be transformed in different ways. This post explores the key principles of the theory, including key debates surrounding it. What is loose parts theory? The term ‘loose parts’ was coined by Simon Nicholson, an English architect and artist. The loose parts theory was first presented in Nicholson’s article ‘the theory of loose parts: An important principle for design methodology.’ This theory rejects the idea that creativity is a characteristic of a select few. Nicholson claimed that people have been misled to think that creating artworks and buildings is so difficult that only highly gifted people can do it. In opposition to this, Nicholson argues that all people, including young children, are capable of participating in the construction of culture. Loose parts…

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Amazing artists and educators 22nd March 2018

Children’s creative learning through the art of Daiga Grantina

This post looks at Daiga Grantina’s installation ‘Toll,’ to consider how the sculpture could be used to design a children’s material-play environment. I am still recovering from the awesomeness of all the modern and contemporary art I encountered on my recent trip to Paris. A highlight was seeing Daiga Grantina’s gigantic, multi-media sculpture, ‘Toll’ at the Palais de Tokyo. In this post, I take a closer look at Daigna’s experimentation with materials in the installation. I then consider how this could be used as a starting point for children’s creative learning. This post is part of a four-part series looking at artist’s innovative ways of working with materials and how this can be used to support children’s creativity. The first two posts looked at the art of French sculptor, César Baldaccini and American textile artist, Sheila Hicks. Check them out if you have not already! Daiga Grantina is a Latvian-born…

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