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Public Daycare / Eltern und Kleinkinder Krippe / Creche Parental / Taman Bermain Bayi dan Orang Tua
documenta fifteen, Kassel, 2022

In one of the rooms of the Fridericianum, there are parents and small children who accessed the museum through its back door. Mothers and fathers carry their babies into the eating, sleeping and changing spaces, and there they look after their babies. In other, larger spaces, the babies move around freely and look after themselves. Their parents are there, but they do not direct the play. This is the proposal of Public Daycare, inspired by the pedagogical approach of 20th-century Hungarian pediatrician Emmi Pikler.

The daycare is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and is free of charge for babies aged 0 to 3 years and those responsible for them. According to Graziela Kunsch, “it is a space where we, adults, more than teaching our babies, can learn with them, and also among us. For example, it is common for adults to anticipate babies’ motor positions—sitting the baby, making the baby stand, helping the baby walk—hoping that, as soon as possible, babies will become part of the ‘adult world.’ What if we inverted this relationship, getting down to the floor, allowing babies to fully live their first years of life, or the ‘baby world?’ Babies are capable of developing motor positions on their own, given time and a safe environment. Here, carers will have the opportunity to combine respectful care moments along with the respect for the baby’s need to move and unfold at her or his own pace.”

Visitors without babies have access to reading and video rooms. On the walls, they can see photographs by Marian Reismann, who for decades documented babies playing, and the relationship between babies and carers, at the Pikler-Lóczy residential nursery, in Budapest. In the library, in addition to books on early education, there is a Library of Playful Objects. Videos show recordings the artist made of her daughter’s free motor development. After 6 p.m., any visitor can circulate throughout the whole area and see furniture designed for babies’ growing autonomy and environments set up for play, with open-ended materials and no predefined use.

The transformation of the monumental museum building into an everyday living space is a collaboration between Kunsch and Elke Avenarius. Avenarius worked as a civil engineer before becoming a mother and co-founding Kleine Entdecker (Little Discoverers) in Kassel, a nursery that recognizes the child as the protagonist of their own development. Kunsch and Avenarius met during a visit to Kassel by the São Paulo-based artist, whose work often engages people outside the art context. Her creative strategy consists of making an initial proposition that she opens up to co-creation and transformation.

Camilo Jimenez (documenta fifteen Guide Book)

photo album link

COLLABORATORS

Architecture and uses: Elke Avenarius and Graziela Kunsch

Entdeckerraum – Parents and babies group: Nina Kanitz (Wednesday group) and Michaela Brüning-Lilienfeldt (Saturday group)

Kunsch’s educational supervisor: Carmen Orofino

Videos: Graziela Kunsch, 2019-ongoing

Drawings: Deborah Salles in dialogue with Graziela Kunsch, 2020-ongoing

Selection of Pikler-Lóczy Institute films: Pikler® House

Black and white photographs: Marian Reismann, 1955 (1), 1964 (1), 1966 (2), 1967 (3), 1969 (2), 1970 (7), 1971 (6), 1972 (1), 1974 (1), 1975 (6). © Magyarországi Pikler-Lóczy Társaság

Marian Reismann’s photographs co-curated by: Graziela Kunsch and Tomas Opitz (TOBE Gallery, Budapest), in dialogue with Ágnes Sorossy (Pikler® House, Budapest)

Ateliê Carambola‘s photographs (babies and toddlers playing with fabric swings and cylinders): educators Cosma Souza, Fabricio Remigio, Gabriela Feruglio, Jéssica Andrade, Paula Galhardo and Sileide dos Anjos Barbosa

Ateliê Carambola‘s texts and co-curating of photographs by: Fabricio Remigio, Gabriela Feruglio, Josiane Pareja, Larissa Meneghini and Paulo Fochi, in dialogue with Graziela Kunsch

Kleine Entdecker’s photographs: Elke Avenarius

Library of Playful Objects: Pikler® House; Strandgut; Barbara Lackner SpielRaum and Kokomoo Spielsachen; Ateliê Carambola; Ateliê Arte, Educação e Movimento (by Suzana Macedo Soares); Music and movement encounters (by Carmen Orofino); Kleine Entdecker Kinderkrippe; Public Daycare

Pikler® Certified Furniture (wood fences; changing tables; Pikler®-Triangle; Pikler®-Labyrinth; wood boxes with small slide; eating benches; stools): Plackner Werkstatt für Spiel + Pädagogik

Playing platform and eating tables: Schreinerei Oetken

Kitchen, sandbox, and room walls/cupboards: Bernd Busse

Library shelf and reading room table: Denis Lebedev

Open-ended playing materials: Kokomoo Spielsachen (different materials); Graziela Kunsch (different materials); Kleine Entdecker (different materials); Carmen Orofino (different materials); Suzana Macedo Soares (natural elements); Ateliê Carambola (cylinders); Cooperativa Emprendedoras Sin Fronteras (the sewing of the cloths); and Guilherme Teixeira (felt circles)

Cloth swings painted at Jamac – Jardim Miriam Arte Clube (Sao Paulo) by: Beatriz Tone, Bruno Oliveira, Graziela Kunsch, Khadyg Fares, Manuela Leite, Maria Luiza de Meneses and Silvana Santos

Collective blanket for outdoor encounters and carpet for the reading room area: Ateliê Vivo by Andrea Guerra, Flávia Lobo de Felício and Gabriela Cherubini (creation and development, in dialogue with Graziela Kunsch) and Francisca Lima (sewing). Fabrics by Ecosimple (made with recycled materials)

Educators self-learning process mediated by: Elke Avenarius and Graziela Kunsch

Guests in the July Public Program: Patricia Lima Zahn, Ute Strub and Carmen Orofino. Final Public Program on pedagogical documentation planned to happen in September

Actions in Sao Paulo hosted by: Casa do Povo

Font type: Deborah Salles

Instagram page: @brincadeira_livre
Video-archive:
brincadeiralivre.naocaber.org

Supporters:
Kleine Entdecker Kinderkrippe
Plackner Werkstatt für Spiel + Pädagogik
Kokomoo Spielsachen
Goethe-Institut Sao Paulo

Thanks to: Exu; all documenta workers; Fridericianum team; Regina Salvetti; María Rozas; Benjamin Seroussi; Casa do Povo; Martin Plackner; Sylvia Nabinger – Associação Pikler Brasil; Rede Pikler Brasil; Pikler® House; Pikler® International; Laura Lazzarin; Mareike Grote; Gabriel Menotti; Pablo Lafuente; Miro Soares; Manuela Guimarães Kunsch; Daniel Guimarães; Margarida Maria Krohling Kunsch; Waldemar Luiz Kunsch; Adriana Kunsch; Clarice Kunsch; Clara Krohling Kunsch; Andreas Hempel; Charlotte Avenarius; Beate Hempel-Scholz; Neele Avenarius; Ute Kümmel; and Elke Eisfelder

PUBLIC PROGRAM

Entdeckerraum (Parents and babies group)
every Wednesday 10am-11am, except for 27.7, 3.8, 10.8
Venue: Fridericianum – Public Daycare
Mediation: Nina Kanitz from Kleine Entdecker
Language: German
Up to 8 families (a family is defined as 1 adult carer + 1 baby between 5 month-8 months old). Registrations at the Public Daycare. Free.
In Entdeckerraum a space is prepared on the floor, with cushions placed next to the walls, for the adults. A space in the room, and a fixed time span during which the adults keep an eye on their children. Different materials are placed in the centre of the space chosen for their potential to instigate the babies’ exploration of fine and gross motor skills. Babies can choose what interests them, move freely and do their research. Parents have the opportunity to observe and learn from the babies, without directing the play.

Entdeckerraum II (Parents and babies group)
every Saturday 10am-11am, except for 30.7, 6.8, 13.8
Venue: Fridericianum – Public Daycare
Mediation: Michaela Brüning-Lilienfeldt from Kleine Entdecker
Language: German
Up to 8 families (a family is defined as 1 adult carer + 1 baby between 9 and 15 months old). Registrations at the Public Daycare. Free.
In Entdeckerraum a space is prepared on the floor, with cushions placed next to the walls, for the adults. A space in the room, and a time span during which the adults keep an eye on their children. Different materials are placed in the centre of the space chosen for their potential to instigate the babies’ exploration of fine and gross motor skills. Babies can choose what interests them, move freely and do their research. Parents have the opportunity to observe and learn from the babies, without directing the play.

Chão da Manu [Manus Floor]
three Sundays in July (3.7, 10.7, 17.7) 10 AM—12 PM
Venue: Park Goetheanlage
Mediation: Graziela Kunsch
Language: German and English
families with babies. Free.
Families with babies and toddlers aged 4 months to 3 years are invited to gather around a large blanket, on which materials and furniture that are good for babies to explore will be placed. While babies play freely, adults can observe and share their parenting experiences. Based on her experience as a mother, inspired by the pedagogical approach of 20th-century Hungarian pediatrician Emmi Pikler, and in the group interests, artist Graziela Kunsch can address topics such as mindful relationship during caregiving, cooperation & autonomy, free motor development (no early encouragement of sitting, standing, walking), and how to prepare a good environment for free play at home. When the artist returns to Brazil, families may decide to continue or not with the meetings around the blanket in parks and/or other specific places in Kassel.

Open morning for local daycare groups
every Thursday 10am-1pm
Venue: Fridericianum – Public Daycare
Public: Daycare groups (educators with 1 group of babies). Registration at the Public Daycare. Free. Kassel Daycare groups are invited to book a morning at the Public Daycare and use its structure. Total capacity: 20 babies.

Two babies, two paces: Learning to respect baby’s time
2.7, Saturday, at 3 pm
Venue: Fridericianum – Public Daycare (WE MIGHT MOVE TO THE COMMON LIBRARY/ROTUNDE, DUE TO TECHNICAL REASONS)
With: Patricia Lima Zahn and Graziela Kunsch
Language: English
40 seats. Free.
What happens when adults don’t intervene in the motor development of young children? Will they learn to crawl, sit, and walk on their own? A century ago, the Hungarian pediatrician Emmi Pikler asked herself these questions. And she and her partner decided not to anticipate their first daughter’s positions and observe what would happen. Her practice with her family, with families she assisted as a doctor, and, later, in the residential nursery she ran for 40 years, demonstrates that babies are capable of developing motor positions on their own, given time and an affective security environment. In this event, two mothers and educators, Patricia Lima Zahn and Graziela Kunsch, living in different countries, both inspired by the Piklerian pedagogical approach, will show photographs and video documentation they made of the motor development of their daughters. Manu (now 2 years and a half old) and Victoria (now 1 year old) have since the very beginning of life the opportunity to move freely at their own pace, achieving motor positions in different times one from another. Their mothers are there with them, present, and on this occasion they will share what they observe, experience and learn.

Rediscovering and repairing the inner child: workshop with Ute Strub
5.7 and 7.7 at 4-6pm
Venue: Zoom event with live audience at the Fridericianum – ruruKids space
Language: German
20 people. Registrations at the Public Daycare. Free.
What if we practiced being consciously aware and experienced life as children do? What if these experiences made us understand children more deeply, ourselves more deeply, and led to a more thoughtful and harmonious existence? In this workshop Ute Strub (1933) will instigate adults to play with sand and other elements and reflect individually and collectively on this experience. As a physiotherapist, Strub became a well-known movement teacher who worked closely with Emmi Pikler. In 1979 she visited the Lózcy residential nursery in Budapest for the first time. She was so impressed by what she experienced there that from then on she campaigned worldwide for this pedagogical approach to become known. Strub is a lecturer within the European Pikler® training and has dedicated herself to the topic of play for many years. Her work has impacted generations of babies, children, and adults. In 2007 she co-founded the Emmi Pikler House near Berlin for infants and small children who cannot grow up with their families and in May 2010 she founded the Strandgut playroom in Berlin.

The body discovers sound: free movement and babies’ sound research
9.7 at 3pm
Venue: Fridericianum – Common Library
Language: English (consecutive translation from Portuguese)
40 people. Free
The baby can discover sounds by touching objects with its fingers, nails, hands or feet, can discover sounds by banging one object against another, or even touching its own body, or touching the ground with different parts of its body. These sound researches sometimes go unnoticed by adults, but both motor and sound discovery are important for the integral development of the child. In this lecture educator Carmen Orofino, scholar of the Pikler approach, will share the experience of the Music and Movement circles that she runs in Sao Paulo, Brazil, with parents and babies, since 2016.

Final event planned to happen in September, with opening lecture by Anna Tardos