‘What the child needs is what we need - just that: places where we can be what we really are: children unto ourselves, from birth to death – somewhere.’
To fully understand the Land of Chabot, we analysed it through different perspectives, movements and eyes of others. We cooperated with children from the St. Michaëlschool. We created three different activities to see how they perceive the landscape, how they can reinvent it, and how they want to explore the Land of Chabot.
What does the world look like from the eye level of a child? To answer this question we engaged children from the St. Michaëlschool in observing and drawing Land van Chabot. It was important for us what they focus on, how they experience their surroundings and how this can shift our perspective.
One of the activities was planting flower seeds. Our aim was to give the children the possibility to change the landscape even if it is in a small way. We asked the children to draw their planting location to see how they locate, perceive, and envision the seeding location. During class children shared with us their ideas of the future of Land van Chabot which gave us very creative input for our work.
Land van Chabot can be perceived as an unapproachable dead end. But there are always ways in! This activity embraced children’s creativity in finding entrances and their own paths in the area. While exploring, they collected natural and unnatural treasures of this place.
