Summer Camp 2023 - A REPORT

This year's summer camp activities applied the tools of art education: drama and visual arts alternated in the camp programme.

The drama section was led by Anita Patonay, who brought the team together very well - despite the fact that there were children of different ages (from first to sixth grade). Besides creating group cohesion, the drama play helped the children to remain attentive, which also included listening to each other. In keeping with the theme of the exhibition, the children took on the role of world travellers, wayfaring in Japan by train in their role-play, meeting strange people, visiting Mount Fuji and writing about their adventures in their travel diaries.

The visual arts section was led by Kati Szeivolt, museum educator at Hopp Museum. The drama programme was complemented by visual exercises. The children sent messages to each other with shells thrown by the Great Wave, painted their trip to Fuji, imagined themselves as world travellers as flat puppets, made contemporary ikebana in mixed media, created a watercolour collage in the Japanese garden in Zugló - and together they set up their final exhibition on the stage of the Hopp Museum's garden.

Each morning started with a sharing circle and each afternoon ended with a closing performance. The final question for the last day was "What new thing did you learn about yourself this week?" Many interesting ideas and thoughts were expressed.

We also learned a new thing about the garden and its gifts: the children had an excellent sense for finding fallen, dried bamboo stems to play with in the quiet break.

Next year we will continue!