A workshop with Emanuel Almborg, Graziela Kunsch and Penny Wilson (Assemble Play) on alternative pedagogies
Please join us for a workshop on alternative child pedagogies. After a brief introduction, we will divide into three groups focusing on different practices: Graziela Kunsch will lead a practical experiment involving fine, dry sand and perforated materials (such as funnels and pasta strainers), using the Strandgut playspace created by Ute Strub in Berlin as a case study. Emanuel Almborg’s group will focus on the research practice and politics of observing infants, delving into theories of child development and observation as a scientific and documentary film approach. Penny Wilson (Assemble Play) will facilitate a group exploring the practice of playwork and how to truly put children front and centre. We conclude with a session that lets the participants share their experiences across the groups. The workshop is moderated by Grégory Castéra and Silvia Franceschini
The workshop will take place in Atelier KANAL, 12Square Sainctelette, 1000 Brussels. Tea will be served from 17:30 and the workshop will start at 18:00 sharp. The workshop is free and in English. It is aimed at education professionals. Please contact Constance Nguyen (cnguyen@kanal.brussels) to register.
Emanuel Almborg is an artist based in Stockholm and London. His practice is primarily based on moving images and engages with pedagogy, psychology and theatre. In 2015 he was a Whitney ISP fellow in New York and in 2021 he finished a PhD at The Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm (KKH) with the dissertation Towards a Pedagogy of the Utopian Image. Almborg is the driving force behind Switchers, a film and theatre collective with young people from London and rural Wales. He also studied psychoanalysis and child development at the Tavistock Institute in London and is currently doing a Postdoc combining art and psychology at KKH Stockholm and the BabyDevLab of the University of East London. His work has recently been shown at Moderna Museet in Stockholm, CAC Brétigny and the Whitechapel Gallery and Raven Row in London.
Graziela Kunsch is an artist and educator from São Paulo. In her projects, she involves people outside the context of art as co-creators, allowing the initial propositions to be transformed. Since becoming a mother, she has focused on childhood, free play and parenting. Inspired by Emmi Pikler’s pedagogical approach, she creates spaces for play and care and mediates groups in which babies play and adults observe. She also used these principles to document her daughter’s free motor development. Kunsch is the editor of Urbânia magazine, whose sixth issue addresses the concept of "public as mutual", the collective construction among people with diverse backgrounds and experiences.
Penny Wilson studied illustration in the 1980s and became a playworker after leaving art school. It was here, seeing children at play, that she rediscovered the spontaneous creativity that had initially drawn her to the arts. After spending years in parks, streets and housing estates for the inclusive play association Adventure Playgrounds, she met Assemble while they were developing their film The Voice of Children for the Venice Biennale. Refreshed by their novel and authentic approach, she joined the collective and helped realise a long-term playwork project in London's Kings Cross, inspired by the "loose parts" philosophy. The project continued after the Covid lockdowns and AssemblePlay has since become a household name, working with many different organisations across London.
