How to use artistic projects with preschool children to tackle challenging topics

Abstract

This thesis is a singular independent artist's perspective on how being an artist can be and has been used as a tool for personal growth and how this information can be used with preschool children. The purpose of this thesis was to collect information from personal experience, research and interviews on how artistic projects can be used with preschool children to tackle challenging topics. The thesis considers the artists’ mindset, art as a nonverbal language, community-based art, the artists’ role in the setting of community-based art with special needs youth and preschool children, and the process of what it takes to create such an art piece.

This thesis was created after a practical training period in a kindergarten in the role of an art pedagogy trainee, which inspired this thesis. Different methods of collecting data have been working in these settings and executing different projects that this thesis will be presenting.

The conclusions show the complex mind of an artist, art being a language any age, gender and race can understand and that an artists need only be an artist when working in a community-based project. This thesis is mostly autoethnographic but also references in literature from the field of art.