Kinderkunstdorf Freiburg 2025

The past weekend I got the chance to participate in a wonderful community festival in Freiburg called "kinderkunstdorf” or children’s art village. This was my second time to set up a workshop at the biannnual “Ki Ku Do” and it was great to be a part of the collection of local artists and organizations interested in sharing artistic practices with the young visitors.

At the event I tried out two favorite activities featured in my book, The Tinkering Workshop. On Friday, we explore kaleidoscopic reflections and on Saturday, kids and families built “old-school” scribbling machines with vibrating offset motors. With both activities there’s still so much to learn and experiment and I really enjoyed the iterative process over the two days of tinkering. Here are a few quick reflections from the event:

Both art machines and kaleidoscopes can be set up as a more open or closed ended experience depending on the choices the educators make. For my tinkering projects, it’s important to have the possibility for ‘wide walls’ where each of the projects look different because they reflect every individual’s ideas. One way to support this aspect of the learning experience is to prepare a set of materials so that it’s impossible to copy one design over and over again. For kaleidoscopes all of the mirrors and cardboard were cut in different ways and for the scribbling machines I didn’t have more than two of any type of recycled cup body.

As I’ve started leading tinkering workshops mostly in a new language (where I’m admittedly still a beginner) it’s made me think even more about the way I introduce projects as every word requires a bit more thought. There’s a big difference between saying were “building art machines” or “we’re exploring art machines”. There are also many other ways to put the emphasis on the project. I also feel that the fact that I’m clearly still figuring out the language puts me in a more equal footing with participants. I think any ways that the facilitator can show that they are learning alongside participants helps create a more open environment.

Even in a pop-up or temporary workshop workshop, I think it’s important to set up the physical elements of the space in a way that supports learning through tinkering. At this type of festival that mainly means trying to protect participants so that they don’t feel rushed or pressured to stop exploring. I added extra benches around three quarters of the workshop and then added a string that doubled as a display area. These simple additions make a big difference even if they are not impenetrable to new participants.

The materials, prompts, facilitation and environment all combine to make an “experience worth having” and hopefully build learners curiosity about the topic at hand. One thing that stuck with me about the workshop was how some of the participants kept coming back to the table again and again to adjust and fiddle with their creations. At the end, even as I was packing up, some of the kids were still at it with their machines. It feels like big strength of tinkering activities that even when you’ve ‘completed’ the project, there’s still many more questions to be answered.

I’m looking foward to continue to collaborate with spiemobil and the Jugendkunstschule in the future to continue to share a tinkering-based approach to art and creativity with our local community.