Workshop at Bytom

The Children of Dust workshop in Bytom, Poland took place over two weekends in September 2017. The aim of the workshop was to track first person accounts of children from the closed coal mining city. Thirteen children between the ages of six years to twelve years participated in the workshop.

Exploring Self, Exploring Relationships and Exploring Landscape were the three phases of the workshop. Each stage encouraged children to engage in activities and share stories about themselves, their families, and their relationship with their city.

Here are a few activities that were a part of the workshop.

Creating a Self Portrait was the first exercise of the workshop. The children were encouraged to draw a portrait and speak about how they 'see' themselves in the drawing. During Expressing Emotions, children discussed about the different feelings that they have experienced and the circumstances that triggered them. They then created drawings to express visually depict these emotions. Most children chose 'Fear'.

In a story building activity, The Biography of Things, objects that were a part of the current and historical cultural context of their city; a miner's lamp, a rolling pin, a coin out of circulation, a photo frame and so on, were shown to the children. They were then asked to choose one, observe it carefully and create its life story. Memento was another activity that focused on memories related to objects. Children were asked to bring or draw an object that they cherish, that connects them strongly to a family member.

In the second phase of the workshop the children were encouraged to talk about their families, while drawing their Family Tree. They narrated anecdotes and spoke about memories related to the different members of their family. This also triggered conversations on migration and how they related to family members who had migrated. Missing Links further allowed the children to explore the relationship with those family members who had become distant. The children made greeting cards and wrote notes to those members of their family.

The final stage of the workshop explored the children's relationship with the city's landscape, their immediate neighbourhood and backyards. What is this? captured the spontaneous reactions and reflections of children on seeing images from their landscape or historical or cultural context. Pictures of sculptures and other landscape elements that were found in their city became the components to a story building Collage activity. Children were encouraged to make a collage that linked these elements and build stories with the characters in the sculptures as protagonists.

During the workshop the children took walks around their neighbourhood, showing each other their backyards, playgrounds and favourite places in the locality. This prompted the My Neighbourhood activity. Children visually depicted their surroundings and spoke about how they engaged with and related to them, thus showing the boundaries of their physical world. Children proposed changes to their yards and visually depicted them in the Backyard activity, reflecting their aspirations related to their immediate surroundings.