Esa and the Objects workshops

“Esa ja esineet” (Esa and the objects) is a series of workshops designed for five-year old children exploring a series of design objects (5) of the Museum’s permanent exhibition. The aim is to collaborate with the Design Museum team in the research of the methods for discussing design objects especially with children, and at the same time introduce them to several different digital media tools.

Each workshop starts with the children watching a puppet show. The puppet (Esa) dreams about a mysterious object. After watching the show the children are invited to discuss about that object, what kind of object it is, is it familiar to them, what is it used for. They are also given a context for the theme object inside finnish design.

Following the discussion children are given a task where they can express their own views and feelings for the object, by producing new objects or new contexts for the object. They take pictures of their works using digital cameras and are asked to briefly tell their stories at the end of the workshop straight to a web cam mounted on a computer with Internet access.

The whole process is documented in video format, not only to be kept in the Museum’s archive but also to support later developments of the project such as the Museum web TV.

The first series of workshops took place in November 2007 in Helsinki.