VIENNA.- Space for Kids. A Dream City sees itself as the prototype for a new exhibition format that aims to meet the needs and perspectives of children. The educational work becomes the object of an ongoing, ever-changing exhibition that combines action and contemplation, production and reception, as well as visual and other forms of art experience. In summer 2018, the lower hall of the Kunsthalle Wien at its Museumsquartier location serves as an innovative space of learning and encounter that is as much playground as art studio and exhibition. The focus is on an expanded notion of sculpture – in other words, on experimenting with form, material, structure and ideas. Through a series of various workshop modules, the children will collaborate on a project of “utopian-fantastic urbanism” that will enable them make use of their skills to design, make something: to create.

What would a (dream) city designed and built by children look like? How would you get there? How would you move around a city like this and how would you dwell, play, learn, live? Would it lead to the creation of new ways of living together or maybe to unprecedented communal approaches to achieve teamwork decisions? The city: It’s a built environment – a construction of ideas!

The Kunsthalle Wien is an institution that actively promotes integration and education that is informed by artistic thinking and strategies. We have been calling attention to this issue for quite some time now by way of a series of projects that focus on the collaboration between children or young adults and artists. The goal of these projects is to demonstrate the potential of contemporary art and to stimulate a creative, intellectual exchange among all parties involved.

The exhibition project Space for Kids. A Dream City has been developed by the art education department of Kunsthalle Wien in co-operation with artists Cäcilia Brown and Johann Schoiswohl. With contributions by Ralo Mayer, Olaf Nicolai, Hans Schabus, and Anna Witt amongst others.