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Children's creative spaces

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

The Atelier of Light at the Centraal Museum, NL www.louisapenfold.com

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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Children's creative spaces

The Ipswich Art Gallery, Australia

This post features the children’s exhibition program at the Ipswich Art Gallery, Australia. From 2011-2015 I worked as a children’s curator at the Ipswich Art Gallery in Queensland, Australia. The Ipswich Art Gallery is a special place for children’s creative learning with a well established program for young children and their families. The city of Ipswich is home to a very diverse and predominantly low socio-economic community. The art gallery is currently one of the most visited in regional Australia. In my travels around the world, I have never come across anything quite like it. Over the past 15 years, the Ipswich Art Gallery has developed and presented over 40 in-house children’s exhibitions. The children’s program is informed by a set of guiding principles that include: Children’s exhibitions are curated for children not adults and Learning begins with creative play. The Children’s Gallery is open daily from 10am-5pm with almost all activities being…

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Amazing artists and educators

Children’s creative learning through the art of Daiga Grantina

childrens creative learning art education atelier daiga grantina palais de tokyo loose parts

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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Amazing artists and educators

Children’s creative learning through the art of Sheila Hicks

“It is so important to make every day. The discovery comes in the making.” Sheila Hicks Sheila Hicks is an American textile artist whose colourful, soft sculptures bring together material traditions from Western and non-Western cultures. I recently visited her exhibition ‘Lifelines,’ on display at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. I loved learning about her experimentation with colour and how this has been a constant creative force throughout her life-long textile practice. In this post, I draw on works from the exhibition to consider how these could be used as a starting point for children’s creative learning through play with materials. This post is part of a four-part series looking at how artist’s experimentation with materials can be used to support creative learning. If you have not already read the first explored the sculpture practice of César Baldaccini, check it out here. Chapultepec (2018). Linen. 24 components, each component 800 cm. Sheila Hicks…

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Amazing artists and educators

Children’s creative learning through the art of César Baldaccini

This post looks at the art of French sculptor, César Baldaccini. I discuss two of his experimental artistic processes: compression and expansion to consider how these could be used as a starting point for children’s creative learning through material play.  This month I will be exploring the work of four artists who have experimented with materials in innovative ways. I will also use each blog post to consider how these processes can be used as a rich starting point for children’s creative learning through play with material. First up is César Baldaccini. Last weekend I saw César’s retrospective at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Admittedly I had never heard of him before going to the art museum. I loved learning about his prolific artistic career and unusual ways of working with materials. I hope you find his radical artistic processes as inspiring as I did. César Baldaccini “My sculptures developed in line with…

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Children's creative spaces

The Children’s Sensory Art Lab at C3 Gallery, Melbourne

The children's sensory art lab at c3 gallery Melbourne

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…

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Children's creative spaces

The NGV Triennal in Melbourne, Australia

Louisa Penfold Kusama NGV sticker

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…

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Children's creative spaces

The Museum of Old and New Art in Hobart, Australia

MONA painting

This post features reflections on my recent visit to The Museum of Old and New Art or MONA in Hobart, Australia. I discuss the ‘O,’ a custom-designed mobile experience for museum visitors that replaces traditional wall-mounted interpretation texts. Last month I travelled to Tasmania to checkout MONA’s latest exhibition, The Museum of Everything. The show features an array of works by artists who ‘fall outside the confines of the art world proper, the work of ordinary people, working far from the cultural metropolis’ (MONA website, 2017). After visiting MONA for the first time in 2014 and LOVING IT, I was super excited to return to see their new stuff. MONA is the lovechild of David Walsh, a professional gambler and art lover who opened the museum in 2011. Built underneath a cliff-face that overlooks the River Derwent, the museum has exhibited an array of controversial and thought-provoking art including Patricia…

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