Exhibitions

About

Research for Innovation

Reggio Emilia’s exhibitions are borne from a strong obligation to continually present the ongoing work of children, educators, and families within the schools. These displays of educational research and innovation use “exhibitions” as shorthand. The large scale and multimedia strategies used to communicate also make these displays generative for visiting educators and advocates. Since 1987 when the first such exhibition traveled to San Francisco, educators have studied, questioned, borrowed, and debated the content of each exhibition as it travels from community to community in the US and Canada. Access by groups of educators to experience the same material at the same time is a unique professional development exercise.

Exhibitions are part of a cultural, economic, social, and political tradition of giving visibility to work in progress. Whether referencing the renewal of a new area in the city or sharing the processes taking place inside the infant-toddler centers and preschools, exhibitions enable all to comprehend and form opinions. Visitors to Italy can attest to the ubiquitous presence of narrative descriptions, information, and images in cities as they continually grow, renovate, restore, and innovate.

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Mosaic of Marks, Words, Material

Exhibition and Atelier

At the core of the Mosaic of Marks, Words, Material exhibition and atelier is the desire to open experiences lived by children as they encounter and navigate communication and mark-making prior to the symbol system of standardized writing and reading.

Drawing and telling stories mean imagining, comparing, analyzing, and exploring spaces, forms, colors, words, metaphors, emotions, rhythms, and pauses, entering into a narrative dimension that is both internal and external to the self, playing on reality, fiction, and interpretation.

For young children, words and stories, silent or spoken, almost always intertwine with drawing, creating an intelligent and often poetic mosaic. The investigations of children and adults that are the subject of this exhibition give us better understanding of the interweaving between mark-making and narration with the aim to restore to drawing, materials, words, and the
children all the cognitive and expressive richness they generate.

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Bordercrossings

Exhibition and Atelier

The aim of the exhibition is to imagine a digital poetic; to research into how new media involve children and adults, the ways they create meaning, how they modify communication and the exchange of knowledge; to produce metaphors, utopias, and imaginings for possible futures.

At the core of the Bordercrossings exhibition and atelier is the desire to probe the edges between analog and digital imaginaries.

The digital has the potential to transform teaching-learning contexts, offering children’s thoughts and theories, new modes of representation within a dimension of culture capable of merging the abstract with the artisanal.

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The Wonder of Learning – The Hundred Languages of Children

Exhibition

At the core of The Wonder of Learning – The Hundred Languages of Children exhibition is the desire to create a democratic piazza, a social space that connects the creativity and expression of children to the public sphere.

The exhibition is a visual representation of the Reggio Emilia philosophy and a chance for the public to participate in the ongoing dialogue between educators, children, parents, and the community. Together with a community collaborator, NAREA partners with cities in North America to bring this exhibition to a wide audience.

The exhibition is comprised of works from Reggio Emilia’s children and adults, and may take the form of visual, poetic, auditory, and kinesthetic works. The exhibition may be viewed as individual works with a unique perspective and as a collective story, many individual threads that together weave a cohesive, creative narrative.

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The Hundred Languages of Children – Narrative of the Possible

Exhibition

At the core of The Hundred Languages of Children exhibition is a narrative of a community that defends the rights and interests of children and their families, especially during the most difficult moments and in the most difficult circumstances.

Although this exhibition is retired, it was a tremendous vehicle for communities in North America to meet and study the paradigm-shifting early education project of Reggio Emilia. This exhibition preceded digital technologies, which meant that it was comprised of original photographs taken by teachers and various examples of children’s conversations and cognitively expressive creations. Although the exhibition is no longer circulating, a beautiful catalogue remains available for study.

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