Tia visits the IMAGINE hut during Festespillene, May 2025…..

Kreativitetskuber for store og små. Photo: https://www.fib.no/no/program/2025/lekoteket

We are in Bergen, during the Festespillene, on Festival Square. Lekoteket, or the Festival “Toy Store”:

Fire store installasjoner blir det lekende hjertet av hele byens festallmenning. Gulv, vegger og tak fylles med små og store spill, labyrinter og leker. Her finnes aktiviteter for lekende mennesker i alle aldre – her kan det klatres, sittes, krypes, balanseres, gjemmes, hoppes, sprettes, skrus og lyttes. I kreativitetskubene kan du leke og tenke – alene eller sammen med en ny eller gammel venn. 

Four large installations will be the playful heart of the entire city’s festival community. Floors, walls and ceilings will be filled with small and large games, labyrinths and toys. There are activities for playful people of all ages – here you can climb, sit, crawl, balance, hide, jump, bounce, twist and listen. In the creativity cubes you can play and think – alone or with a new or old friend.

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One of those cubes is IMAGINE:

https://www.fib.no/no/program/2025/lekoteket

IMAGINE is “Kunstverksted for barn og familier/Art work place for children and families”

I en del av Lekoteket vil det fra torsdag 29. mai holdes kunstverksteder for barn og familier. Her kan man lage tegninger og maleri, fortelle historier, dikte eller skape musikk sammen om hvordan de ønsker seg omsorg for seg selv og andre, i møte med forandringer i livet.

Kunstverkstedene holdes av professor i musikkterapi ved Universitetet i Bergen Wolfgang Schmid og postdoktor Maren Metell, og med seg har de to studentassistenter fra Fakultet for kunst, musikk, og design (KMD). Les mer om det kunstbaserte forskningsprosjektet IMAGINE.

In a part of Lekoteket, art workshops for children and families will be held from Thursday 29 May. Here, people can make drawings and paintings, tell stories, write poems or create music together about how they want to care for themselves and others, in the face of changes in their lives.

The art workshops are held by Professor of Music Therapy at the University of Bergen Wolfgang Schmid and Postdoctoral Fellow Maren Metell, and they are accompanied by two student assistants from the Faculty of Art, Music and Design (KMD). Read more about the art-based research project IMAGINE.

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You choose a medium and begin.

There are brightly coloured markers. Their tops can be difficult for little fingers to reattach. But when Maren helps one child he is very pleased. Their eyes meet in mutual recognition of a task done well. There is clearly Art in this co-produced task, the mutual tuning in of eyes and smiles…

There is also chalk. Already, in hour 2 of day 1, some drawings on the wall in pink and blue.

And crayons. And a very happy guitar.

And clay. Play doh, “det klassisk lekeleire som har underholdt barn i generasjoner” (‘the classic play clay that has entertained children for generations”). Clay in white, pink, green, orange…

Someone is making a little pizza. “Is it a white pizza?” Wolfgang asks. “It looks like it has salmon and broccoli toppings?” The answer is yes. Someone else has made a cake. There is an elaborate green mille-feuille, layer on layer of painstakingly crafted pastry/clay. There is an accumulating tapestry that, by the end of the four days is taller than any child…

Photos: TD

It turns out that food is a major theme, as you might expect when thoughts turn to care. But there are also rainbows, hearts, and many, many cats….These themes will be noted, explored, catalogued later with the 300+ artworks produced over four days…

Photo: TD

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Paper is dispensed from a tear-able roll. Wolfgang hands a slice to each child. Some are keen, some shy, some come in with their parents who then hover just outside the door of the little hut. The parents are patient. Sometimes an artwork might take more than a quarter of an hour before it is complete.

There are small children’s chairs and tiny tables.

Wolfgang Schmid and Maren Metell inside the IMAGINE hut. Photo: TD

The inner walls are dotted with tiny dioramas on the theme of care, health, medicine.

Photos: TD

There is a revolving wheel on the outside wall of the hut – endlessly fascinating, different swirling patterns emerge and morph. When seen from the correct angle, the wheel is a rainbow of colour. It is constantly in use; little arms, big arms, each take a turn to keep it turning.

Photo: TD

There is a wide pipe with brass bells at either end. It snakes around the corner of the hut…

(Sound recording, Through the pipe)

The IMAGINE concept is spelled out on a little note on the outside wall of the hut: to make a picture or some kind of artwork that shows how you think about care, for yourself or others, especially in times of uncertainty, loss, or sorrow.

The outside of the hut and the task. (Photos: TD)

It is, among other things, a lesson in what can be done without words, without too much prior knowledge, with simply, a willingness to try. To give care a chance, to imagine and show. The responses are generous.

Someone makes a picture of a croissant. Min mor. This is for my mother who likes croissants. Someone else a Jackson Pollock abstract that spells out Mama. There was a dinosaur, slightly lopsided, whose head later fell off, but was carefully preserved alongside its body… And the pizzas…. And the cats…. And… And just possibly, secret wisdom shared one-to-one along a snaking pipe…

An accumulating trove, a reservoir for the community. These very young children who can imagine acts and gestures of care….