Life in Crisis:Creative Insights from Pupils
The exhibition project Life in Crisis: Creative Insights from Pupils showsartistic testimonies of a difficult and volatile time from the perspective ofpupils. The rooms of the Museum der Moderne Salzburg become exhibition spaces of children’s lives during the COVID-19 pandemic. In cooperation withthe Department of Educational Science at Paris Lodron University Salzburg and the Salzburger Bildungslabore, an exhibition project was developed based on the results of FULIC. “Futures Literacy”, FULIC in short, is an international research and development project that has been carried out together with schools in Austria, Germany, and Greece since 2020 at the University of Salzburg, Department of Educational Science, Division of Educational and Professional Research.
It all started with a school assignment on the acquisition of writing skills.Pupils in the fourth grade of an Austrian primary school were asked to imagine themselves in the year 2080 and report to their fictitious grandchildren about life in the time of the COVID-19 crisis. A writing assignment that – even from today’s perspective two years later – could not be more topical. This gaverise to the idea of inviting schools at primary and lower secondary level to asktheir pupils between the ages of 10 and 13 to also complete this writing assignmentand, in connection with it, to draw their experiences. The resultingfascinating corpus of currently more than 800 pupils’ texts and over 100 drawings serves educational research first as data material to learn moreabout the little-known inner perspective of the pupils massively affectedby the COVID-19 crisis. Social science analyses with different methodological approaches enabled the synopsis of subjective experiences of school andlearning with aspects of everyday life, the family, and the assessment of the social consequences of the crisis and possible future perspectives.https://doi.org/10.1007/s35834-021-00299-2
By means of the fictitious representation of the past, the pupils also created “images” of the future – pictures in a double sense – that contain utopias of social coexistence, but also dystopias, depending on how optimistically or pessimistically one assesses the outcome of the pandemic. These assessments of the future, which in part also go beyond the perception ofthe COVID-19 crisis and address other global problems, have gained evenmore relevance as a result of the events and crises in the current year 2022.Inspired by international projects on futures literacy (https://en.unesco.org/themes/futures-literacy), this project is also about the schoolrelated processing of crises and the question of whether and how writingcan also release creative forces for students to shape the future.The project team found that the resulting images and texts invite attention,reading, contemplation and discussion. The project therefore also offers aspace for dialogue with the pupils, the schools, and the interested public,which is now realised in this exhibition.
The team of the project FULICE Life in Crisis: Creative Insights from Pupilsat the Museum der Moderne Salzburg:Project management:Prof. Wassilios Baros and Prof. Ulrike Greiner Paris Lodron Universität Salzburg: Mag.a Herlinde Aichner; Aida Kell-Delic, MA; Ioannis Kourtis, MA;Paraskevi Fanarioti, MA; Johanna Heimbach, MA; Mag. Stephan M.Schweighofer; Annika Wastl.Museum der Moderne Salzburg, Art Education:Mirabelle Spreckelsen MA, Mag.a Cristina StruberThe exhibition is sponsored by the Stadt Salzburg and the Land Salzburg
The tasks:Writing task: It is the year 2080, you are over 70 years old, and your grandson/granddaughter is visiting. The media have reported extensively about the COVID-19 crisis in 2020. Your grandson/ granddaughter is verycurious and wants to know more. He/ she asks you about your memories.You tell him/her how it all started, how your daily life, school life, familylife and contact with your friends changed.Drawing task: After you had finished writing your story, you just remembered that somewhere in the attic you had kept a drawing of yourself that you had made 60 years ago during the COVID-19 time when you were a small child.Take paper and pencils or paints and draw this picture!
https://www.wissensstadt-salzburg.at/future-literacy-kinder-erzaehlen-von-der-corona-krise/
