WHY DO KIDS NEED ARTISTS?
Oskar Hansen and the Open Form

Every other Sunday of the month the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw holds family workshops for children and their guardians. The workshops aim to introduce the figures of artists featured in the “Creativity Exercises. Spaces of Emancipatory Pedagogies” exhibition.

What the artists have in common is a particular need to use art and artistic situations for educational purposes. We will not focus on watching the material works of art and talking about them. Instead we will take action and experience. Inspired by the artists’ work processes, we will invite families to perform exercises and create together, giving them new methods and tools for experiencing the world around them.

We will start with the great pedagogue and visionary, Oskar Hansen. His Open Form idea assumes that the role of the architect is not to create and propose a finished solution. Architecture should instead be a convenient background for life, one that the user can change according to their needs. During this class we will wonder at which point architecture becomes a frame for life, as perfectly tailored as a picture frame.