Groninger Museum presents the Children's Biennale
After a hugely successful first edition, the Children’s Biennale returns to the Groninger Museum, this year with the timely theme A Better Place. The exhibition invites children and adults to into a unique, interactive art experience that will get them thinking about how a better world might look. In 10 galleries filled with art, visitors can play, build, and let their imaginations run wild. Children’s Biennale – A Better Place is open from 9 March to 3 November 2024.
Make, do, marvel
Visitors can crawl through the interior of Florentijn Hofman’s amazing Wurm and help to build Carolien Adriaansche’s The Blue City and Isabel and Alfredo Aquilizan’s Head/Home. Sanne Boekel’s work is a game about feelings, Jelle Mastenbroek’s bird sounds stir the senses, and in Studio Toer’s gallery visitors can have a conversation with a cloud. Florien Riezebos and Hedy Tjin’s work pushes the boundaries of the art of drawing. Visitors can get lost in Stefan Venbroek’s marvellous animation. And Wang Ruobing’s work will make them conscious of the ocean and the things people put into it.
A peeing polar bear
A bonus work by Florentijn Hofman is on view outside the museum. The Peeing Polar Bear expresses his displeasure at climate change by relieving himself in the canal. The statement ties in with the show’s theme, A Better Place, and is one of numerous ways the Children’s Biennale spurs us to think about the role we all have to play in building a better world.
Co-created with kids and young adults
One thing that makes the Children’s Biennale unique is that children and young adults are involved in creating the exhibition. In a range of participative projects organised with the Elja Foundation, young people helped out while learning about various aspects of setting up a museum show. They wrote texts, provided input on PR, watched the exhibition being set up, learned about becoming a tour guide, and much more. The young ambassadors’ experiences are documented at Children's Biennale: A Better Place | Groninger Museum and on Instagram at @groningermuseumyoung.
Local and national partnerships
The museum has partnered with local and national organisations to realise works in the show. Florentijn Hofman’s giant worm was specially produced from sustainable cardboard by Solidus in the village of Oude Pekela. The firm also furnished the Filipino artists Isabel and Alfredo Aquilizan with cardboard for their room-filling installation Head/Home. The Royal Talens Foundation provided drawing materials for Florien Riezebos’s and Hedy Tjin’s works. Children selected pieces of ocean trash for Wang Ruobing’s work at the waste collector Bek & Verburg in the port of Eemshaven. And residents from around Groningen province and staff at the UMCG medical centre collected blue and white plastic waste for Carolien Adriaansche’s The Blue City.
Born in Singapore
The Children’s Biennale is a concept of the National Gallery in Singapore. Wang Ruobing and Isabel and Alfredo Aquilizan’s works were previously on view at the last Singapore Children’s Biennale.