Little wonders in the art museum
The gallery, as a culture-creating institution, enables not only the preservation and presentation of works of art and artefacts but also an informal form of education for the general public. One of its target groups is the family. Professor Lynn Dierking (1989), who studies family visitors in museums, points out that families represent the main part of visitors in informal learning environments. According to him, families consider museums, from the perspective of spending leisure time, as a socialization and educational space.
Leisure-time family programs are primarily oriented towards families with preschool and early school-age children. Parents significantly influence children's activities and conduct, whether positively or negatively. Upbringing is a constant, demanding process throughout an individual's life. Parental upbringing shapes a child most significantly in the early period. The gallery environment also becomes a natural place for the family where they can spend their leisure time together and actively. Pat Sterry and Ela Beaumont (2006), in their research focused on methods for studying family visitors in galleries, highlight gallery education, through which visitors can understand attitudes, motivation, learning, perception, and culture. More effective results can be achieved when families are involved in educational activities that the gallery offers.
The educational department of the gallery creates both one-time events and regular programs running on a weekly or monthly basis. Regular programs can take the form of a complete cycle with a homogeneous group or take place regularly at a certain time with a heterogeneous group. Such programs are usually divided according to the recommended age category of participants. Not every gallery implements family programs, but recently interest in them has been growing, and Slovak galleries are gradually joining the trend of foreign ones, precisely by implementing programs designed for the youngest visitors from one year old. If a child visits the gallery with their parents from an early age and participates in gallery programs, the gallery environment ceases to be foreign to them. Often with regular programs, after completing a course, the child wants to continue with a course for the next age category. In this way, the gallery gradually cultivates a future visitor.
In public galleries in Slovakia, offers for families with children aged 1 to 4 are not common. Of the 29 galleries registered in the Register of Museums and Galleries of the Slovak Republic, 5 galleries offer courses for parents with toddlers. In the following section, we will look at one of these programs – Little Wonders in the Slovak National Gallery. It has been running since September 2017, once a month. Due to high interest from participants, the same program takes place twice a month. The very fact that parents sign up for programs with sufficient advance notice and reserve places for several programs ahead gives a signal about the needs of parents with toddlers to visit cultural institutions and engage in creative activities. Even in the gallery, they can experience and perceive creative stimuli, new experiences, and opportunities for discovering the world through works of art together, and thus build a positive relationship with art from an early age, develop imagination, and creative thinking. In the gallery, this is fully possible.
The Little Wonders program lasts 45 minutes. This time is fully sufficient for maintaining children's attention. A three-year-old child can maintain attention for 20 to 30 minutes if the activity interests them. Families meet in the introductory room of the exhibition, where the program also begins, and while waiting for other participants, the first activity is prepared – functioning independently – with the help of brief instructions from the gallery educator to complete a task. Through a playful form, the simple activity is meant to pique children's interest and introduce the meeting's theme. For example, tracing hands on oversized paper glued to the floor for a theme about hands, matching natural and man-made objects to outlined shapes of these objects on paper for a theme about natural objects, or finding a lid for a container and catching air by closing the container for a theme about air. Here it is clearly visible how children with their mothers and fathers become acquainted with the gallery environment along with other participants. The educator evaluates the activity and introduces the theme. Usually, the entire program is accompanied by a fairy tale related to the theme, presented by the educator. The story unifies the theme and constantly returns to it, thereby maintaining children's attention. A toddler's memory is short-term, but they remember what interests them. If it is something new, they will remember it better if it is presented in an interesting context. Regarding memory, Ľuba Končeková (2014, p. 101) characterizes the basic features of a toddler's memory for storing and recalling experiences that emotionally affected them. She states that a child remembers and recalls specific images, personal experiences, and sensations before words and concepts. A two-year-old child can recognize a person even after a longer period. Representations and imagination are concrete, and it is precisely in play or drawing that they are fully manifested.
Each meeting contains physical, sensorimotor, and creative elements. In simple physical activities, locomotion, balance maintenance, and fine motor skills are developed. By focusing on the activity, the child's intellect is simultaneously developed. Overcoming obstacle courses (walking, jumping, crawling under), following marked signs, collecting objects in space, or walking on various surfaces are also fully utilized in the gallery. Children practice fine motor skills through short art activities and basic grasping movements, which are often connected to the functionality of an object or tool. Tools, art supplies, and materials are most extensively used in creating the final part. Since the program takes place directly in the exhibition spaces, due to the protection of exhibited works, techniques and working with materials are limited. If "wet technique" is important for the theme, the entire program takes place in a studio. Creation always stems from the goals of the theme or from the story. For example, a theme about weather may lead to a dreamlike level with creating a headband of clouds. What is it like to have your head in the clouds? Activities of examining objects and collecting them in various ways precede the creation of a backpack. The child can place collected objects in the backpack, and it does not matter at all if they are fictional – collected from paintings. During the program, one should think about connecting experiences with the exhibition. Linking creative activities with works of art is an inseparable part of gallery education. For children under 6 years old, exhibition interpretation focuses primarily on concrete visual components, and the exhibition's theme is worked with. Essential is the exploration of visual impressions that children can observe not only in the gallery but also in their surroundings. Katarína Sokolová (2010, p. 12) considers the linking of words and images to be the principle of gallery interpretations of art with an educational purpose. The gallery educator enables immediate perception, knowledge, and decoding of works. At the same time, they enable works to be perceived in the context of the gallery but also in the context of life, and the educational process is adapted to the individual cognitive dispositions of the perceivers.
In the gallery, sensory knowledge is most prominently applied. According to Šobáňová (2014, pp. 59-62), this is precisely what is considered an advantage of gallery pedagogy over school learning, which takes place predominantly through verbal schemes that lack sufficient grounding in children's concrete representations. Through education, didactic exhibits, and means, effective and meaningful learning and acquisition of new knowledge occur. A transformation of a certain aspect of the visitor's personality occurs – their interests, attitudes, or values.
Věra Mišurcová and Marie Severová (1997, pp. 9-10) consider developmental changes in early childhood to be permanent and very significant for the entire development of a person. Children have very well-developed sensitivity of sensory organs, through which sensory perception develops. They very readily receive information from the external environment and are able to adapt faster to educational conditions and life situations. From birth, they learn spontaneously, quickly, and productively. They want to discover new things that are attractive to them, expressing joy from every success. Jitka Oravcová (2006, p. 42) describes a toddler's perception (sight and hearing) as an important cognitive means (previously, touch was especially important). The senses complement each other; through them, the child discovers objects around them – if they see an apple, they can imagine its scent and taste. They learn to name basic and supplementary colors, can assign a part to a whole and vice versa, which refines analytical-synthetic perception. In courses for children in the first 6 years, intensive work is done with recognizing and sorting objects and their parts. The advantage of the gallery environment is that children have direct contact with works of art, which can be supported by the selection of other objects in program activities.
According to Jean Piaget (1993, pp. 11-21 and 51-59), who studied the development of cognitive processes, designating something with a different symbol, word, or gesture appears in the 2nd year of life. The development of thinking proceeds from the sensorimotor phase, which lasts the first 18 months, through the symbolic, pre-conceptual, leading to intuitive thinking. In the sensorimotor period, representations and thought processes are not formed; the child perceives visual stimuli, to which they can respond and simultaneously assimilate and acquire habits. At the end of the first year, they begin to search for new means based on the differentiation of known schemes, for example, pulling an object toward themselves, which leads to the process of understanding and creating relationships between schemes. The symbolic function, which forms the basis for later action, represents the emergence of speech and logic, visual representations, and memory.
Children quickly acquire language; thinking reaches a higher level. They create first symbols for various objects and through other means can designate reality, for example, through artistic expression. Young children often substitute things they don't have available in play with other symbolic representations. (Mišurcová & Severová, 1997, pp. 11-13) Works of art act upon children, support the formation of representations, and communicate with them through the guidance of the gallery educator. Important forms of the symbolic function are play and drawing. Through symbolic play, the child adapts to the world they discover. Ľuba Končeková (2010, p. 130) describes how in a two-year-old, manipulative play predominates – transporting objects, pulling movable toys, taking things out of cabinets, manipulating with objects. Imitative play is refined in the third year, and the child can do several things at once. Among other toddler games are receptive games and task games, derived from imitative games. These, along with constructive games, prove highly effective in the Little Wonders program. In receptive games, work is done with perceiving stimuli in the gallery, extending to the perception of personal space and surroundings. Constructive games develop thinking, imagination, attention, and systematicity. The child refines their skill with different materials. Play supports socialization and relaxes the atmosphere; children stop feeling shy. In all activities, the role of the parent on the program is very important – who not only guides the child and helps them fulfill tasks but also participates together with them in activities and improves socialization with other children. According to Končeková (2014, pp. 104-105), a toddler has a strong emotional attachment to their mother and father; gradually, a bond begins to form with other close ones and later with peers. Toward the end of the second year, they begin to establish playful contact with other children. Susie Wilkening (Wilkening, 2011 in Herman, 2012) found that a museum visit by parents with children becomes successful precisely thanks to quality cooperation between them. Naomi Lifschitz-Grant (2018) focused on a family program for the youngest children (3-5 years old) at the Reynolda House of American Art museum in North Carolina. It became successful thanks to educators actively involving parents in it. Family education consists of learning where family members jointly participate in activities. Adults can help children respond to works of art by extending conversations with them while simultaneously helping them build knowledge.
Conclusion
A child's development up to 6 years old is very important in acquiring new skills and habits; experiences are recalled, ideas and wishes arise. Educational meetings in cultural institutions support these processes and provide opportunities for family members with small children to learn through experiential form. Parents need not worry about coming with a stroller to the gallery, and thanks to special programs, they can forget about fear of disturbing other visitors, because the program is reserved at a specific time in a specific exhibition for them and adapted to their needs. Together with children, they can have fun in playful artistic, sensory, or physical activities in the pleasant gallery environment and receive the meaningful educational component of the program under the guidance of a gallery educator. The gallery can become a regularly visited place for families and simultaneously a source of inspiration for activities taking place outside the gallery environment.
Information about the Little Wonders program: (source: https://www.sng.sk/sk/programy/1416_male-divy) Little Wonders is a new format of SNG enabling the youngest to spend stimulating time in the gallery. The series of 45-minute meetings for children aged 1-4 and their parents focuses on discovering the surrounding world through works of art. It takes place every first and second Wednesday of the month at 10:15. Gallery educator: Barbora Danišová
Author: Mgr. art. Soňa Patúcová Soňa Patúcová has been working as an art educator at the Slovak National Gallery since 2016 and as a doctoral student at the Department of Art Education at the Faculty of Education of Comenius University in Bratislava with a dissertation topic focused on family programs implemented in museum and gallery institutions. At the same time, she expresses herself artistically through painting, in which she develops the theme of landscape. In the years 2004–2010, she studied art education at the Faculty of Education of Comenius University, and in the years 2008–2014, she studied painting and other media at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in the ±XXI Studio under the guidance of Daniel Fischer.
List of Bibliographic References
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