Zachęta – National Gallery of Art in Warsaw is inviting the public to an international multimedia exhibition on art, childhood and raising children. The event will be accompanied by a rich programme of educational activities, performances, workshops and meetings between artists and children, as well as an international conference on alternative concepts of children’s art education in the 20th and 21st centuries.

The title of the exhibition “There will be no second spring”- recalls the words of Franz Cižek, a pioneer of art education at the beginning of the 20th century. They refer to childhood and sound like a warning, but also a call to responsibility and action. The exhibition will run from 31 March to 18 June.

The Zachęta Gallery will recall both the practices of the pioneers of modern pedagogy (such as Janusz Korczak, Maria Montessori or Célestin Freinet) and alternative education from the early and first half of the 20th century (starting with the modernist concepts developed at the Bauhaus), as well as contemporary references to these sources. Their common denominator is fostering children’s creativity through interdisciplinarity, learning different skills, and experiencing reality with different senses. 

The organisers are announcing the presentation of examples of artistic practices that include children as full and active participants in the creative process. An important place is given to activities involving non-adults from social groups excluded on the grounds of ethnicity, economic situation, or disability. The exhibition will show how creative activities become a tool for them to regain their dignity and their own voice. 

“The exhibition also includes examples of artistic practices in which children explore alternative forms of social relations with adults. The organizers show how joint creative activities based on mutual exchange of knowledge, experience and collective work can teach social behaviour and empathy.

Arkadiusz Słomczyński