KinderKunstLabor

In times of upheaval, the concerns and needs of the young generation change. 

As a new cultural institution, the KinderKunst­Labor opens up an artistic space for children up to 14 years of age, which does not exist anywhere else in this specific form. In the Altoonapark in St. Pölten, an architecturally innovative meeting place between international contemporary art, children and artists is being created. Children are the focus of the two yearly planned exhibitions and a thematically interlocking range of workshops and projects. They will not only visit the new exhibition centre, they will help to shape it. Experimental, intergenerational, cross-institutional. The children’s perspective is the basis and the tool of mediation. In the process, new communities are created – globally, regionally and locally.  

The artist of the opening exhibition in September 2024, Rivane Neuenschwander, has been working for some time with the children of the Kinderbeiratsgruppen (children’s advisory groups) and the Kunstideenwerkstatt (art ideas workshop). In her “Dream.Lab”, she talks to them about the importance of dreaming for humanity, about the perception of time in dreams or the difference between dreams and daydreams. How can we dream with and from the perspective of nature? What does it mean that the dream is an oracle for indigenous peoples? Can we dream of expanding the political imagination?  

In cooperation with Tangente St. Pölten, another thread questions the connections between democracy and art: what is the significance of art for society?