The City of Boys and Girls 2023

The Museum of Modern Art of Medellín, in partnership with Bancolombia and in collaboration with social, educational, and cultural institutions in Medellín, has been developing the program “The City of Children” since 2008. Inspired by the ideas of the Italian educational psychologist Francesco Tonucci, the program aims to promote children’s autonomy and participation in the city.

Its objectives are to recognize children as active citizens, owners and creators of their territories; to empower them to express and make visible their stories, opinions, and ideas; and to explore with them the diverse narrative forms of contemporary art.

In this way, “The City of Children” is an integrated process comprised of four significant educational scenarios:

Observe: Identify elements of the environment or their daily experiences.

Explore: Engage in experiences that foster ownership of different spaces in the city.

Experiment: Manipulate different art materials and techniques to develop their own artistic languages, sometimes with guest artists. Storytelling: Creating narrative products and amplifying children’s voices.

Participants

Currently, the workshops are held in three neighborhoods of the Metropolitan Area, with 110 children and young people, between the ages of 7 and 15, connected to foundations with a long history in each area: Funaya in San Antonio de Prado (La Florida and El Limonar villages), El Hormiguero in El Pedregal village in Itagüí, and Huellas in Santo Domingo Savio.

The 2023 Experience: Emotions for Peace

This year we decided to address the theme of “Emotions for Peace” as a call from the participants themselves to focus on issues that affect their minds and bodies, matters we consider urgent to address now, as latent consequences of the crisis triggered by the pandemic and the challenges that the recent peace process in Colombia presents to us as a society.

Literature was the tool we, as a team, chose to use across all aspects of this version of the program, beginning with the story “The Soul Bird.” This story allows us to approach emotions as metaphors, opening a world of possibilities where children can explore different artistic expressions to give form to what they feel inside and often struggle to name.

In addition to literature as a central theme, the work in 2023 focused on two other topics aimed at fostering reflection on emotions and the context in which children live: mental health and well-being. These concepts guided the process, both thematically and methodologically, in the communities where the foundations are located and in other urban spaces we visited.

The Encounters:

We begin this journey into the depths of our emotions by acknowledging the stories we live, the places we inhabit, the memories we build, the emotions we feel, and who we are becoming and learning. To do this, we pay attention to life, the neighborhood or the sidewalk, and generally to those places where children construct their being and their relationships every day.

This recognition of physical space leads us to recognize the emotions that reside in every corner of our bodies and understand what each one is trying to tell us, about ourselves and others, in order to understand their differences and, from there, manage what happens within us. This allows us to learn to establish agreements, boundaries, and connections, raising our voices, recognizing our rights, our ethics, and authentic forms of creation.

All of the above is developed through metaphors, questions, and artistic, literary, and musical experiences that invite us to open up and connect with our bodies, but also with the air, the wind, the water, the plants, and the fire, because our emotions dictate not only our relationship with ourselves or with our peers, but also with nature and the world we inhabit.

During the gatherings, which take place both in their communities and in different locations around the city, we practice breathing exercises, mantras, yoga postures, and talking circles that allow us to process emotions before, during, and after each gathering. This is a way to make children aware of the importance of making space for emotions in their daily lives, enabling them to listen to themselves and others as part of building peace from the inside out, recognizing difference and conflict as fundamental factors in the peace process we want to achieve as a community and as a country.

The Final Product:

Based on the bodily and musical exploration that emerged from these encounters, we aim to foster spaces and reflections that will lead the participating children to compose a song. This song will showcase the creative and pedagogical process surrounding emotions for peace.

The creative process has allowed us to construct a visual narrative in which participants, through the exploration of different artistic expressions, have found tools to talk about their experiences, strengthen their voices, and discover different channels to express their emotions and feelings, making their emotions allies in the construction of their being. This program seeks, as its ultimate goal, to promote healthy and safe environments that foster encounters with nature, knowledge of the neighborhood, the exploration of new musical languages, and a sense of community for well-being.

Below you can listen to the final product created by the project participants, in which they invite us on an inner journey with our soul birds.