Museum education – museums for children: “I would paint a question mark”

Bunter Jakob studio – that’s a nice name. What is behind it?

The Bunter Jakob studio is a workshop for children, young people and neighborly initiatives in the Berlin Galerie. We mainly offer open studios, workshops and holiday projects. All of our programs include the current exhibitions and the museum as a special place.

Did you get here with the studio to the Berlinische Galerie?

Yes! The cooperation began when the museum moved here to the former glass camp in Kreuzberg. In 2004 the studio was also founded in colorful Jakob, as a cooperation between youth in the Museum e. V. and the Berlin Gallery.

What questions are connected to the artistic educational offer?

It is about creating starting with the creative work to the social discourses. We wonder what interests ten -year -old visitors at an exhibition, and what meanings do the young Berliners give to the works of art shown? What knowledge and realities of life do you bring to the Berlin Gallery?

What is special about the Berlin Gallery for you?

It is noteworthy that both the youth in the museum and the Berlinische Galerie were founded privately in the 1970s. Both of committed citizens who were interested in art and were enthusiastic about museum.

A look at the professional beginnings: The focus was not on children’s art at all, but the theater. How did it come about?

Theater games have recently delighted me at school. After graduating from high school in Trier I went to Munich, was in the cellar theater – a collective – had a director’s assistant there. Then I was traveling with a hiking theater for a year and pulled through Bavaria with the smallest four mast tent on earth. After that, however, I really wanted to go back to the university and first decided on theater studies. Art history was added.

Do you come from a theater and art family?

No, not at all. My mother was a gardener and my father an engineer. But both were very interested in art.

How did she shape Trier?

After graduating from high school, the desire was very strong to escape the confines of this conservative city. Later I rediscovered very warm people and a lot of beautiful things in Trier.

Now the question comes: Karl Marx?

Naturally! However, he was not particularly popular in Trier. It was more about the Roman cultural heritage. The perception for Marx only really developed in 2018 with the anniversary exhibition. But his historical presence had always helped me to be proud of Trier. The examination of him only started as an adult.

What did you mean studying at the Maximilian University?

The course was great! I was only lacking a bit of contemporary art – and practice, i.e. the immediate work with people. I have always tried to find a good mix of theory and practice in my life, which I found satisfactory for myself.

They studied in the 80s, still in the old Federal Republic, then they moved to Berlin.

Yes. But I first worked in Munich after my studies. I was an artistic project manager in the model project Children’s and Youth Museum. It was very nice because I had a great colleague with whom I was also artistically active. In 1990 I came to Berlin and was very impressed, not least of the city’s size.

How did you experience the 90s?

I remember how many traces of the past world war I saw in the east of Berlin. That was no longer possible in the old Federal Republic. A coincidence also brought me to Wünsdorf, the former Soviet military city, when it was not yet open to the public. It was a strong emotional impression of walking through the uninhabited city, seeing Kyrillic letters and empty apartments that looked like people were just getting up and gone from breakfast.

How was your start in Berlin?

There were many niches for artists and incredible projects. I felt very much at home here and first completed further training “European cultural management” for a year and a half. By 2004 I went to Vienna to the museum district.

Back into today, games have become a trend term. Why are children’s art and playing among the central offers of many museums today?

Playing is a universal human cultural technology. This has to do with self -determination and the entry into fictional spaces. It is beautiful and strengthens us, especially children and young people. Museums are important rooms for this. It is also essential for the future to interest children and young people for the museums and to share them more in the cultural events.

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If you get started artistically, how do you express yourself and what?

I like to work with collected things. I collected eggshells for several years and worked them on. Also nylon stockings, for example.

Both materials, although so opposite, have to do with skin and surface. Can you explain a little more about what interests you?

I think I am very interested in fragile materials and series. I am concerned with the variation, about crossing the serial logic. I once saw a poster from the Natural History Museum with a butterfly show box. Below it said: “The world is still okay with us.” I thought at the moment, that’s why I am so interested in series and orders and variations.

Egg shells are extremely fragile. Is that also for working with children?

A long time ago I worked for a friend at the Südstern in the youth center. There were very wild boys from whom I was a little afraid of. I decided to work with blown eggs and with holes in these eggs. You have to be very careful. It worked really well. I think the boys were surprised.

If you were painting a picture now, what should happen to it in any case?

I might not be a whole picture, rather just a sign. It would be something like a question mark or an empty space.

Empty space?

Yes! It is about the conscious perception of gaps, especially in our work with young visitors. We would like to convey experience that what is shown in the museum has been subjectively selected and brought to certain connections. Certain perspectives are made visible, others remain hidden.

Could you imagine going back to Trier?

No, I can’t imagine that. I don’t want to move to the country either. I think it’s very nice that I have the opportunity to work in Berlin-Kreuzberg, to experience the city like this and still be a lot in nature.

Where do you like to spend your free time?

A lot in Brandenburg or in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. I came from the strongly cultivated landscapes around Trier and Munich. I like to go paddling and enjoy the beautiful, not so strongly “capped” nature here.