Bonn / Alfter, Germany. A whole century documented in children’s drawings.
Children’s drawings offer direct insights into their perception of the world and themselves. The aesthetic and analytical examination of these drawings is not only fascinating for parents and caregivers, but also for those working in art pedagogy, cultural and media studies, and psychology, as well as for therapeutic and artistic research.
The Children’s Drawing Archive at the Alanus University of Arts and Social Sciences is one of the largest in Germany. It comprises approximately 200,000 children’s drawings; the earliest date back to the 1920s. The collection was acquired from the University of Cologne about 15 years ago and has been continuously expanded ever since.
This span of over 100 years makes the archive a valuable cultural and educational historical document. The collected drawings show how children from various regions and cultural backgrounds in Germany have interpreted their everyday lives over the course of a century. Children’s visual language also documents the societal shift from an analog world to a reality shaped by digital media and technologies. Rabea Müller, head of the Institute for Art Therapy at the Department of Artistic Therapies and Therapy Sciences at the university, describes the children’s art archive as a “unique cultural-historical repository.”
The university invites institutions and experts to support them in the professional archiving of the images, ensuring that the older drawings in particular are preserved from imminent deterioration and that the archive remains available for timely scholarly use.
Source Alanus University of Arts and Social Sciences
Contact Rabea.Mueller@alanus.edu
Translation Paula Boslau
Image Yasara Hansari
