A trip to Manchester Art Gallery

 I love visiting art galleries. Anywhere I go it is a must to stop in a local art gallery/museum. It is my requirement. When I visited the art gallery whilst staying in Manchester I was nicely surprised. The art gallery had a section for children, which was incorporated into the current exhibition. I am a passionate art admirer so for me, trips to galleries are never boring but unfortunately for my friends, the experience is not the same. I studied art/ art history for a significant amount of time, therefore, I have some background knowledge but If a person who has no knowledge visits an art gallery, I can imagine it must be a strange, confusing experience.

With this prologue, I am trying to express that a child might struggle with being entertained whilst visiting an art gallery so when I saw this project, it made me happy. I am trying to incorporate the topic of art galleries into my dissertation so this project was inspiring to me. The only difference is that I am aiming to focus on the therapeutic aspect of art galleries rather than the educational. Since this topic has not been discussed enough, there are not many research papers on this topic. To conclude, I hope my future career will allow me to contribute to this topic. 

This is the section for children, where the artistic sessions are held. My assumption is that this project is a long-term thing, instead of focusing on only one exhibition. When I move to Manchester, I can assure you (myself) that I will be observing the correlation between children and the art gallery. 

   

 These are free leaflets you could take from the gallery. You can tell from the design it is aimed at children. It offers numerous art activities, but what brought my attention was this reflection exercise which I think is an amazing idea! To introduce children to therapeutic activities in a non-forceful and playful way is just amazing and I am admiring the person who came up with this idea. You are never too young to learn that your feelings and emotions are important and the earlier you familiarise yourself with this realisation the better.

For "The Lion's Den" context, it was an exercise where there was a painting of a lion and next to it there was a space for children to re-draw/copy the lion, which I think is a great idea to bring awareness to art in a young age. 

 And last but not least is this book, which made me happy. I am trying to live my life in more of a sustainable way of being vegetarian and not supporting fast fashion etc, therefore I think living sustainably is very important. As a student of play, I never thought of connecting sustainability and play together. I will pin this photo here because I want to read this book!