Photo credit : Agnès Desfosses
ENFANCES
CHERCHEURS D’OR
Exhibitions to look at, read, write or play with
all audiences
Conception and photos : Agnès Desfosses
Created in 2012 et 2016
Production : ACTA, conventionned company: Conseil départemental du Val-d’Oise, City of Villiers-le-Bel. ACTA is subsidised by the DRAC Île-de-France through a territory convention, and by the Île-de-France Regional Council through an artistic permanence convention.
Exhibition created as part of the European project “Grundtvig” Parenthood / Education / Culture / Art and the festival PREMIÈRES RENCONTRES’s European Forum 2012
« Looking elsewhere to question our own early childhood education practices »
Book-exhibition: “ENFANCES CHERCHEURS D’OR” (“Childhoods, seeking gold”) Crossed views and words on early childhood in 5 European cities
&
Exhibition-table: “Elsewhere in the world: Japan, Brazil, Reunion Island”.
These two exhibitions are inseparable and complementary. Together they open up to the diversity of educational practices that are rarely superimposable from one country to another and from one region to another. The photos taken in the early childhood organisations of 5 European cities will be placed next to photos taken in 6 organisations of 3 Japanese cities, a favela in Brazil and 2 experimental spaces in Reunion Island.
As a director and co-director of the European biennial PREMIÈRES RENCONTRES, I have seen how sensitive very young spectators are to the CREATIVITY of performing artists. They are available, attentive, concentrated, curious and moved by these creations. As a photographer, I wanted to see in which context the CREATIVITY of these same children flourishes. I only went to early childhood institutions, first in Europe (2009-2011) then in Japan, Brazil and Reunion Island (2015).
Agnès Desfosses
Three questions guided my photographs:
What respects, develops, stimulates or hinders the CREATIVITY of toddlers in the daily life of early childhood institutions and during artistic workshops? In what way can the living environment encourage the development of this CREATIVITY? How does it open up in contact with nature, the Other and the object?
My vision as a photographer is not neutral: it is subjective and coloured by my culture of origin but also by my appetite for openness to the world. Today, in order to nourish our dialogues, it is your own view of these photographs that I am seeking through these exhibitions.
