Children's Video Art at NAEA

Mystery Castle with a Lot of Treasures was featured in the NY Children's Video Festival at the National Art Education Association Convention in NYC, on March 16. George Szekely, artist, writer and professor of art education at the University of Kentucky, and Renee Shaw of Barrett Elementary School in Arlington, VA, hosted this event. I was so impressed with the amazing diversity of the work produced by Renee's 2nd-5th grade students. Claymation, stop-motion, digital storytelling, the works. Beautiful, hilarious, experimental, and everything in between. Renee will curate next year's NAEA children's film fest and made a call for submissions from art/media educators. Brigid McGinn, an atelierista from Brooklyn, attended this session and remarked that the videos were refreshing because at the convention this year we had not seen nearly enough images of children themselves, but instead had been inundated with ideas (in the form of research studies about art education) and stuff (to buy from the art supply vendors who had set up booths at the convention). I agreed, and wondered what we might do to change that.

I saw a beautiful and exciting presentation given by Ricardo Rubiales of the Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporáneo at UNAM in Mexico City, who started the Reggio Emilia-inspired atelier/art studio at the Museo Nacional de Arte in Mexico City. I was so encouraged to see the imaginative learning that took place in the museum when the children were given the time to think and question before looking at the art in the museum. The projects he showed us--of explorations of pirates and monsters--had come out of the kids being given the time to explore. Their drawings and constructions were intricate, meaningful and full of story--universal marks of truly engaged child art. Ricardo mentioned that when questioned by parents who wondered why their young children needed to stay in the atelier/art workshop for three hours, he would reply that they were working within "Reggio Time."

Also at the conference, I was happy to see Olga Hubard, my Ed.M. advisor, who does such wonderful work in her own art and in teaching in museums and at Teachers College.