Big Voices
Big Voices
Children’s Art Matters
This exhibition is in the past.
12 September 2020- 8 August 2021
Philip Bacon Heritage Gallery, level 4
#slqBigVoices
Children's art is powerful. Through art, children give voice to their knowledge and experience of their world. To have your voice heard is a human right. But, to make art, to tell your own story and to share this with others takes courage. Drawing from the Dr Barbara Piscitelli AM Children's Art Archive Big Voices celebrates this courage and creativity of children sharing their stories through art.
The Dr Barbara Piscitelli AM Children's Art Archive
This archive is a collection created by Dr Piscitelli, collector and curator of children's art, and advocate for children's cultural citizenship.
The archive represents over 30 years of working with children on local, regional and international art projects. Exploring children's perceptions and observations of specific areas of their lives, this unique research collection tells stories of childhood across continents, across communities and across time.
Dr Barbara Piscitelli AM
In 1986, Dr Piscitelli founded the Children's Art Archive when she began using art to talk with children about their worlds, their futures and their rights.
Since that time, she has systematically collected and documented over 2,000 children's artworks from urban and rural Australia, China and Vietnam.
The Children's Art Archive was donated to State Library in 2005 to continue this commitment to collect and preserve children's works.
Explore the collection
Dr Barbara Piscitelli AM Children's Art Archive, 1986-2016
Stories
Online curator's tour
Dr Barbara Piscitelli AM Oral History and Children's Art Archive Digital Story
After the Fridge: Caring for children's artwork
An interview with Eric Stonehouse
Big Voices webinar
Behind the scenes
Summary: Dr Barbara Piscitelli AM Oral History and Children's Art Archive Digital Story
Learn
The Children’s Picture Diaries methodology aims to collect stories about childhood, as told by children in various formats: in story, poem, film, drawing, painting or sculpture. The methodology encourages the development of critical and creative thinking, literacy, intercultural understandings, and personal and social capabilities.
This education resource is underpinned by the methodology developed in communities by Dr Barbara Piscitelli AM.
Grade Levels: Early Years
Subject Areas: Visual Art
"Children have the right to share freely with others what they learn, think and feel, by talking, drawing, writing..."
— Convention on the Rights of the Child
