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Arts & Communication Performance arts, public space, and early childhood

silent, it will be in movement that they will tell us about
themselves: about being a child, their joys, their anxieties,
their research into the form-content of their poiesis” .
22
In early childhood, we find a conviviality that is
based on experience and perception. Body knowledge,
improvisation, unpredictability, time, energy, and impulse
are seen by artists, children, and adults as unique ways of
being in the world. Based on the perception of the body and
the writing of that body in movement, there is a dialogue
between action, presentation, and observation. Children
and adults find themselves as performers in the scenic
action and can even interfere, destroy, and reconstruct the
elements at play. The focus is no longer on the artist as the
conductor of the performance but on the experience of
the body in space, making human interventions an active Figure 6. EmQuanta: Artistic action in the garden of Alvares de Azevedo
immersion in the scene, as we are in Figure 6 below. Public Library, July 02, 2022. Photo by Wilson Julião.
Children and adults relate to each other, mediated by
play and experimentation with the landscape, the objects
in the scene, the sounds, and external interferences of the
park. They reveal and hide parts of their bodies; they put
themselves in unusual positions and movements; they
explore the materials with sound; they create a body-
home relationship with the objects; they move around the
installation by coupling their bodies to the material; they
cross the space quickly playing tag; and so many other
possibilities for play and manipulation are discovered by
the children in the scene, which are shared with the adults.
The work thus places the participants in a position
of intimacy. There is contact with the other through the
occupation of space and the manipulation of objects,
which generates movement. On the other hand, there is
immersion in intrapersonal contact through the playful Figure 7. EmQuanta: Artistic action in Aclimação Park, June 05, 2022.
state that the material, space, and sound provide. The Photo by Leandro Goulart.
spectator’s position shifts from passive contemplation to
immersion in the action and in the relationship with the Through the circulation of EmQuanta as an artistic
scene and the other participants, be they children or adults. action for young children and their parents in the squares
EmQuanta, then, allows us to break with the isolation and parks of the city of São Paulo, the emphasis is on
experienced during the pandemic, bringing countless occupying these spaces in a way that makes them more
possibilities of what can be known from a conviviality, and welcoming for children, expanding the availability of
producing singular poetics in each of its encounters with playful and accessible spaces. This considers the unique
others, with space, and with the shared world. needs of early childhood, stimulates their revitalization, and
encourages intergenerational coexistence. Furthermore, it
8. A city that is also for children encourages play, the exploration of children’s physicality,
By proposing artistic action involving young children in and their integral development through art while
the public space, Núcleo Quanta aims to contribute to the facilitating interaction with adults and raising awareness of
defense of children’s rights in their existential and social the importance of early childhood care.
specificity, to their development, and to the creation of a As we resume conviviality in public spaces, we also ask
network of families, teachers, artists, and caretakers who ourselves what we have learned from the experience of the
can, with due knowledge and care, multiply the esthetic pandemic. How did we get through this moment with the
and artistic experiences in early childhood. We can have a children, and how can we collaborate to rebuild a world
sense of this in Figure 7 above. in which the presence of children is qualified, considered,

Volume 2 Issue 1 (2024) 9 https://doi.org/10.36922/ac.1668