April 11, 2014
9:45am-6pm

Across time and cultural context, the most common tangible form of children’s self-expression may be found in their artwork. Children’s art has the potential to provide important visual testimony of children’s life experiences, as well as how “childhood” itself has been understood in various times and places.

“Children’s Art from the Past and Present” is a one-day, interdisciplinary symposium that will explore the challenges and possibilities of interpreting children’s art as an important source of cultural knowledge and historical evidence.

The symposium will bring together scholars and practitioners. In addition to examining a range of contextualized studies of children’s art, participants will be asked to identify and develop a set of interdisciplinary methods and resources for interpreting and contextualizing children’s art.

General themes:
• What can we learn from children’s art?
• What models, methods, and sources are available for analyzing children’s art as historical and cultural texts?
• How can/should children’s art be best contextualized?
• Are there universal qualities to children’s art?
• How can cultural and historical specificity be recognized?
• What are the limits of interpretation?

The sessions will be audio and video recorded for posting on the symposium website.