Taipei Fine Arts Museum (TFAM) organized Art Classrooms in the basement as a venue for citizens to get access to art programs since it opened its doors in 1983. And the idea of curating for children audience first emerged in the International Symposium on Art Museum Education in 1999, through the interaction between the TFAM art educators and the speaker from the Galerie des enfants, Centre national d’art et de culture Georges-Pompidou (Centre Pompidou). From 2001, TFAM worked with Centre Pompidou for four consecutive years to present interactive exhibitions targeting children audience, featuring engagement, and encouraging them to interact with original pieces.
In addition to Art Classrooms, to further promote interactive leaning in art education, TFAM established Art Experience Corner in 2002 considering the increasing demand from educational institutions and families. Art Experience Corner offered educational activities in coordination with the exhibition of that period, invited artists to join activity planning and conducted on-site creation to engage the audiences in participatory experiences.
Besides, TFAM educators organized Art Educational Exhibitions from 2005 to further put forward the idea of learning by doing and learning through play. In 2010, Art Educational Exhibitions were transformed into Art Exploration Exhibitions, combining TFAM collections and interactive installations together. The new title itself also reflected the core value that such exhibitions were dedicated to children and encouraged the audience to actively explore art pieces.
From Art Classrooms, International Symposium on Art Museum Education, Art Experience Corner to Art Exploration Exhibitions, TFAM gradually figured out the principles and practices for art museum education. In 2009, the museum was under renovation for the coming Taipei International Flora Expo, and TFAM made use of this opportunity to reflect upon its social needs and international trends in art museum education. After consulting experts, TFAM decided to incorporate the overall art education area and proposed the Children’s Art Education Center project to cater to the needs for art education for children and families.
A Brief History of Children’s Art Education Center
Sponsored by the TSMC Education and Culture Foundation and funded by Taipei City Government, together with the endeavor from the museum staff and the architecture designing team, the Children’s Art Education Center was finally open to the public on Children’s Day in 2014 after five years of preparation. Along with the inauguration came its grand opening exhibition, The Gift, which delivered a message to the society that it was a gift for the future generation. The visual design of the icon resembled overlaying geometric cubic building blocks, which was inspired by the tubular-shaped compositions of the TFAM building. The window symbols signified that children were motivated by their minute curiosity and took a peek at the sky from a window beyond which they further explored a much broader world.
The Children’s Art Education Center grows beyond its designated location in the basement and undertakes its missions in introducing the contemporary art education concepts to Taiwan over the years. From 2015, the center not only announces learning to be its core value but also attempts to redefine the definition of education and learning, that is, to create new approaches to knowledge acquisition and art museum experiences. The purposes of the art museums have evolved along the way, from the traditional object-based functions in artwork collection and display to a more human-centered, viewer-based objective. Art museums not only boast a substantial amount of art collections, but also serve as a friendly space for viewers to relax, build social connections and experience art in daily life. Furthermore, the Center stresses on participatory experiences, expecting the interaction and communication among the viewers would facilitate their leaning, nurture diverse participatory experiences and establish new relationships between TFAM and the audience.
Contemporary art involves a great deal of multidisciplinary knowledge and emphasizes critical thinking as well as social participation. In 2016, the Children’s Art Education Center officially shifted its curating principles from traditional artwork displays to annual or biannual “Educational Projects,” which consist of a central exhibition and a creation workshop organized by TFAM educators in collaboration with contemporary artists. In these “Educational Projects,” TFAM staff work not only as the media in artwork interpretation but also as experience transformers. At the same time, artists are no longer the art creators but constructors of the learning experiences.
On the one hand, the Educational Projects of the Children’s Art Education Center allow children to perceive the world from the artists’ perspectives and meet the world of diversity through their creativity and problem solving techniques. On the other hand, it engages the artists in discussions with the staff over designing interactive installations for each Educational Project, promoting experience transformation models that can be duplicated and transferred to the audiences, and guiding them from only visual appreciation to physical and perceptual engagement. Through the Educational Projects, audiences are expected to become active explorers of the world and develop visual literacy as well as critical thinking skills.