Ideas cannot be fossilized, 2023 (WIP)

In the project Ideas cannot be fossilzed, Aldén creates sculptures in granite based on children's drawings. The project examines children's drawings as a means of communication and studies the child's first attempts at writing letters. This connects with the art historical idea that man began to write down her history when she began to write. Aldén thus links the children's first attempt at written communication to the history of human art and through this project studies the children's transition from their own prehistory into history. In connection with the project, 24 workshops with preschool children will be held in September 2023. The material accumulated from the workshops is used as a basis for a stone sculpture that will be produced in spring 2024. 80% of the children in the residential area in question do not have Swedish as their mother tongue. Therefore, this project on letters and communication is especially urgent and interesting. The children also get to participate in the creation of a public work of art which they will then be able to visit and interract with after the end of the project. This project is partly inspired by the consciousness-raising pedagogy of the Brazilian educator Paolo Freire; he believes that by becoming aware of one's reality, one becomes a co-creator in ones culture and, in the long run, also a co-creator in ones history.

The project is carried out in collaboration with Göteborgs Konsthall and the pre-school area Hjällbo/Eriksbo, in Gothenburg (130 children, 30 staff). For the past three years, Göteborgs Konsthall has had an ongoing art-pedagogical collaboration with the preschool area Hjällbo/Eriksbo under the project name Kan en sten bli en häst (Can a stone become a horse), with the aim of working with contemporary art, language development and aesthetic learning processes. 
The growing block universe, 2023
Relief in granite, after child drawing

Ideas cannot be fossilized, 2023
Relief in granite, after child drawing



Childrens drawings, 2021-2022

© Clara Aldén 2024