Our educational project, "Artsvit for Kids", is finally returning!
The new course aims to show the importance of socialization and communication in society through art, to teach children to interact in a team, and to allow them to feel like an artist, going from the idea to the realization and presentation of the work. We will encourage the child to reveal himself, manifest himself, think outside the box, learn something new about himself, and practice various artistic techniques under the guidance of teachers included in the process.
Also, the new program continues to carry the social function laid out last year, with the beginning of the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation. We saw that in the conditions of war, it is easier for children to experience anxiety, fear, and uncertainty through creativity and interaction in a team of like-minded people. Thanks to art, you can talk about the world and the events around you; it helps you release your emotions, share them with others, and experience dramatic episodes. Such a therapeutic effect is observed not only among children but also among adults. Therefore, the new program has a comprehensive approach and for the first time in its existence will be supplemented with a separate course for parents.
We invite a broad audience to participate in the program - three age groups (children aged 6-9 and 10-13, youth aged 14-18, and parents of children aged 2-9). First, these families were forced by the war to leave their homes and move to the Dnipro. But this project is not exclusively for internally displaced persons: we strive both to integrate IDPs into the city and communities, to help children and youth socialize and make new acquaintances, and to support the Dnipro people themselves — to create a shared space, a kind of island of safety in times of war for everyone through art. In addition, one of the goals of the new course is cultural exchange and stabilization of the local scene through artistic cooperation.
The program starts on October 7. Classes will be held every Saturday.
This year's program consists of three courses:
1. "Imagine and create" — for children aged 6-9 and 10-13.
The program consists of an organic symbiosis of theoretical and practical components. We strive to introduce children to the history of art of the 20th and 21st centuries through play and creating their works. Our teachers have combined three artistic directions: storytelling, performance, and animation - through which children will learn to listen to themselves and others, explore space, understand their own body, and their actions, and fill movements with a specific meaning, like characters in plays or cartoons, and also trace the connections between nature and art, how it inspires creativity, is embodied in the same children's book illustration or other visual art.
2. "About Art Here and Now" is a theoretical program for youth aged 14-18.
This course is a series of lectures and discussions about contemporary Ukrainian art: where you can get to know it, what it is like, how to understand it and talk about it, who its representatives are, and why it is essential to attend cultural events. In addition to the talks, three master classes with invited artists and curators are planned, during which the program's young participants will be able to get acquainted with various artistic techniques in practice and thus think about their future profession in the creative environment.
3. "Art for Children" is an online course for parents of children aged 2 to 9 years.
The program's goal is to provide parents with tools to spend quality time with their children and incorporate art and creativity into everyday family life. During the course, parents will receive additional materials collected in one workbook in PDF format of about 20 pages (course outline with various games and supporting materials).
The courses for children and teenagers consist of 10 classes (12:00, 14:00, 16:00), the final of which will be a joint event, and the course for parents includes eight online meetings; you can also join them physically in the space of the Artsvit gallery. Start at noon.
The classes will be held at Krutohirnyi Uzviz, 21a, Artsvit Gallery.
Free entrance.
Authors and teachers of the project: Alina Shtefan, Ksenia Romaschenko, Yulia Hryshyna, Oleksandra Shovkun, and Polina Rode-Fuyor.
Pay attention! To participate, you need to register for each class. Every week, we will publish a new registration form for the next class; stay tuned.
Look for links to new registrations here!
Financing is carried out from the Stabilization Fund for Culture and Education 2023 by the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Germany and the Goethe-Institut.
The educational platform "Artsvit for Children" has been in the gallery since 2014. Each iteration touches on new themes and techniques, but one thing remains constant - the desire to open the world of art to children. We are convinced that through creativity, a child gets to know himself better and acquires various skills functional in adult life and any profession, even a technical one.
This is confirmed by various studies, for example, about the contemporary Czech social artist Katarzyna Sheda, which began as a student project of the graphic designer Kristina Drinková and was published by the Gallery of Fine Arts in Ostrava (GUVO). The central thesis is that combining unique knowledge and skills creates outstanding specialists, helps to be more easily implemented in the future, and opens up new opportunities. According to the materials of the British meta-research Teaching and Learning Toolkit, the involvement of schoolchildren in artistic practices positively affects achievements in other educational disciplines.
However, we emphasize that this project is not an academic education; our teachers do not teach children to draw. Communication is an essential factor in our program. We want to integrate children and teenagers into the artistic community, arrange a dialogue, and refute the opinion about art as tedious and difficult to understand. We believe that the young generation deserves to have a broad outlook, and art and culture in general, enrich aesthetically and educate conscious citizens.
The Stabilisation Fund 2023 for Culture and Education is a project of the Goethe-Institut and the German Federal Foreign Office to sustainably strengthen the resilience of cultural and educational partners in Ukraine.
