First „ART in the City“ then „PART of the City“

PA/SPIELkultur conducts projects related to play for children and youth across Munich. For more than 50 years, it has been organizing participatory and interactive experiences for live and digital play – between arts, nature, media and with all senses. This contribution focuses on four areas of PA/SPIELkultur’s work over generations. Beginning with the students’ revolution in 1968, it all started with some young art educators thinking about how to extend their work from classroom to public spaces. They also included their students, and their activities were also influenced by the art form of the “happening”, namely organising events in public and having not only fun but also the reaction of the spectators and the public. A very important factor for the success and development of the group was their well-organized public relations. By articles in the newspapers and reports in the radio they became well known throughout Munich and beyond. Already in 1969, they were invited to present their work at a world conference in New York and in 1970 they were invited to contribute for children at the Art Biennale in Venice. Throughout the years, the focus of their work changed away from art influenced activities with their students to play activities with all children living in the neighbourhood. This was the birth hour of the first playbus. The idea was to bring time, material, partners and space to enrich the play value for the children. This playbus was the beginning of a now more than 50 years story of success. Since then, the initiative has become more and more supported by the youth department of the City of Munich and developed numberless projects about play and culture with children.

Today PA/SPIELkultur e.V is an indispensable part of the city Munich financed by the youth welfare office to fulfill children’s right to play. Nowadays we are focussing on cultural media education, nature experiences and art education in immersive play spaces. In cultural media education it is a big challenge to enable children to a creative and self-determined use of media using storytelling methods like stopmotion, film and music making or creating radio plays. As the cities are growing denser and parents are getting more protective, opportunities for outdoor play and nature experiences dwindle we are providing a diverse nature and sustainability program in our nature experiences. And in our art education projects we aim on integrating and strengthening the resilience of children and young people. The project offers free access to art education in the participants‘ living environments by creating cooperations all over the city.

International Play Association Triennial World Conference