What does the world sound like?

The project explores the relationship between the world in the richness of colors in which we perceive it and the forms of its expression: sounds, smells, physical sensations and the way we can express them through a line, a color or a musical phrase or a word.

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The project invites us to look around, listen, physically perceive and smell, and to express these meanings in a playful way. In this way, it helps children understand how language (or art) works and learn to use it freely and with joy. It helps them to interact freely with "unknown" languages and always look for a way to communicate. Onomatopoeic words offer themselves as a key for children to understand language.

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"There is always something around us that makes a sound. When we get up: we yawn, mom cuts bread, brother stomps, the cat meows, the wind blows, the rain falls..."

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There are sounds that we can hear. However, we do not hear some, but we "see". In Japanese, all these sounds are - very richly - described by words. In Japanese, it is also common to create new words (based on onomatopoeia) to express the world around us as we perceive it. For this reason - and also because almost no one understands it - we consider Japanese to be the perfect medium to explore how language works and to play with it: without knowing enough Italian, Czech or German.

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This exhibition offers an alternative way to encourage children (3-10 years old) to enjoy playing with language. In an inspiring way, we want to help them master the basic language categories so that they can use language playfully, creatively and consciously. This problem is all the more urgent as Europe faces the need to integrate a large number of children from different cultural backgrounds. In this way, the project offers a safe (and culturally neutral for Europe) holistic environment and playful methodologies to address this problem: for children, parents and teachers and educators.

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The project was created through the collaboration of Tereza Dobiášová (Krejčí), Hiromi Ogata, a Japanese artist and poet living in the Czech Republic, and her husband Pavel Janšta.

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Based on their collaboration, Hiromi created 2 children's books, Sound-Painting Book with the Cat Kosmos and Cat Kosmos and the Celebration of Flowers, in which the cat Kosmos guides children through a poetic world of onomatopoeic words inspired by Japan.

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The books were published in 2018. In the same year, the UUUL team (a non-profit organization focused on developing an interactive art-based educational environment for children, founded by Tereza Dobiášová) created the first concept of an interactive exhibition based on these books, which was not realized - due to the Covid pandemic.

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In 2020, UUUL reopened the topic and, together with a group of artists and teachers, developed workshops that could be realized either for live classes or online. The team implemented ... together with Sladovná Písek and the cultural center in Broumov ... workshops.

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In 2023, UUUL continued to intensively explore various artistic and educational activities that strengthen literacy based on onomatopoeic principles and motifs from books. In close cooperation with the educational department of the Gallery of the Capital City of Prague, it developed a series of workshops and game environments that it implemented as part of several festivals in Prague and Písek.

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In addition to testing these activities, a series of other possible activities and environments were brainstormed that could become the building blocks of a comprehensive interactive exhibition (based on art, but strengthening literacy) for children 3+.

 

Exhibition authors

Book authors: Hiromi Ogata and Pavel Janšta.
Curator: Tereza Dobiášová (Krejčí)
Animation: Lou Sanitráková
Programming: Kuba Sanitrák
Graphic design: Jaromír Hárovník
Team of educators: Lenka Vancová, Anna Homola, Sophie Menasse

 

Co-producers of various stages: Malthouse Písek, Cultural Center Broumov, Gallery of the Capital City of Prague, DOX (Center for Contemporary Art, Prague)