07 MARCH 2024 – 06 OCTOBER 2024, SPAZIO TESORO, VILLA MALPENSATA
The exhibition presents 55 drawings selected from the immense archive of the Pestalozzianum Foundation in Zurich; made in Switzerland, by children aged two to thirteen, in the first two decades of the 20th century. At that time, there was great interest in children’s art and even avant-garde artists, including the Dada movement that arose in Zurich in 1916, wanted to capture the mystery of the immediacy with which children perceive and depict reality. Educators and teachers throughout Europe, including Switzerland, also endeavoured to give children’s creativity more space through a general renewal of drawing lessons, which marked the transition from 19th century pedagogy to modern schooling.
LET’S GO TO SCHOOL! is the twelfth event in the Dèibambini cycle, a MUSEC project launched in 2005 as a platform for interaction between the museum and schools. In its first ten years, the project allowed children to engage with different themes, with the aim of increasing their awareness of their own potential and inner vision and strengthening their ability to interpret the world.
Since 2020, the project has been renewed and the starting point has become the works of children from the past. The idea is to build a bridge between the children’s creativity of yesterday and today, through the in-depth exploration of expressive content that not only interconnects cultures, but has served as an extraordinary source for the renewal of artistic languages in the 20th century.
