Families and individual child visits

For most exhibitions since 2009, children accompanied by their parents have been receiving special mediation support. If unaccompanied, children receive explanations from the head of public relations at the same time as the adults. However, they receive special attention, and appropriate words are used in these presentations.

Visit notebook 
This document is a notebook designed for children aged 6 to 11 (who know how to read and write), helping them explore the exhibition more actively. It contains reproductions of the artist’s work, explanations about his or her approach, as well as riddles and questions relating to the exhibition.

“Big Ideas, Small Hands” workshops
Workshops are offered on 2 or 3 Wednesdays per exhibition. During these workshops, children come to the art centre for 3 hours to manipulate materials and develop ideas linked to the exhibition. In this way, practice helps substantiate the artist’s theoretical intentions, enabling children to tackle visual art. An initial visit lasting from 45 minutes to an hour gives children the chance to collectively explore the exhibition through questions and observations guided by the head of public relations. This is followed by a 2-hour practical workshop led by visual artist Katia Mourer, enabling children to take the artist’s themes and inspirations and playfully make these their own. The children can usually take their creations home with them.

Art and philosophy snacktime
Can the world be represented? Does imagination move away from reality? Can we travel without moving? Are other people like us? These are some of the questions considered with children during the art and philosophy snacktime.

The CAC - la synagogue de Delme offers these meetings at partner media libraries in Lorraine. With the help of simple philosophical ideas and images of works, the art and philosophy snacktime is a playful, pleasant way for children to consider the questions on their minds, and gives them the chance to talk about and reflect upon subjects that concern them.

Art and philosophy snacktimes are after-school activities for children, conceived in partnership with media libraries and cultural sites in the Lorraine region. The aim of these snacktimes is to develop children’s critical minds and their ability to analyse the images that surround them. These activities are offered free of charge to media libraries that request them. 

Schoolchildren

Exhibition visit
The visitors’ service adapts to teachers, offering them everything they need in terms of information and resources. If a teacher has been unable to take part in the teachers’ meeting, the art centre sends them the teacher’s pack (free of charge upon request) and takes care of the educational side of the exhibitions through guided tours for schoolchildren of all ages, from nursery school to secondary school. Visits can be combined with a tour of the Gue(Ho)st House or a practical workshop linked with the problems explored by the artist. These visits are possible throughout the week by appointment.

Classes (middle school and up) accompanied by their teacher can meet the artist in residence at the Lindre-Basse studio. These meetings give students a chance to interact directly with the artist and consider questions on creative work in progress. The meeting room at the Lindre-Basse town hall, which is adjacent to the studio, makes it possible to host groups of schoolchildren and screen images and video. It can be a place for discussion and deeper exploration, led by the artist, the teacher and the head of public relations.

Cultural walks
Landscape day - An educational activity centring on the collections of the Georges de la Tour museum in Vic sur Seille and the art centre’s artist residency. Since the end of 2007, the Georges de la Tour regional museum in Vic sur Seille and the Delme art centre have been joining forces to offer middle school and high school teachers and their students a daylong activity centring on the theme of landscape. The museum’s permanent collections and the art centre’s residency program serve as a point of departure for a cross-disciplinary approach to this inescapable theme of the history of art. An exploration of historical and contemporary works, a sensitive approach through rough sketches, a meeting with the artist in residence: a rich, cross-disciplinary meeting that combines the historical and the contemporary.

The ambassadors - A middle school class gets to thoroughly explore the art centre all year long: exhibitions, resident artists, the Gue(ho)st House, jobs…. Over one weekend at the end of the year, students have to take on the role of curator, manager, cultural mediator or even artist. They present the works that they and their classmates have created over the course of the school year, in the context of an exhibition that can be seen for one week during the art centre’s opening hours.

Art practice workshops
Every year, in conjunction with schools in the Lorraine region, the art centre organises art practice workshops (APW), art and culture project classes (ACP) and culture classes. Artists are invited to work with a class based on the particular contexts of each school: the artist may specialise in a medium (multimedia, video), a particular history (building refurbishment projects) or a special subject of study (territory and citizenship for agricultural colleges).

The involvement of artists in schools through art practice workshops and culture classes is a special way of familiarising students with the creation of art. It enables them to meet and interact with an artist in the context of a project. Their aim is to encourage creative reflection and practice that will give students the chance to gain critical tools for perceiving their environment based on the artist’s work. These activities are not designed to train artists or encourage students to practice “in the style of”, but are more of an invitation to interpret contemporary forms of expression by raising sensitivity, sharpening their eye and their critical faculty as they explore not just contemporary art, but also - and especially - the world that surrounds them.

Higher education

Lectures and meetings with artists are made available to universities in the region offering courses in culture (history of art, the performing arts, radio and television, cultural mediation and visual arts). Guided tours are also organised to welcome students and raise awareness of the presence of a resource-site. University lecturers and researchers are regularly informed of the art centre’s activities in order to bring about synergies between artistic and educational programmes.

Student collaboration in the activity of the art centre

All year long, internships are regularly offered to students enrolled in art academies or university cultural departments, enabling them to participate in the operation of the art centre or take part in setting up exhibitions: performing arts, postgraduate diploma in cultural evaluation and mediation, degree in cultural project conception, history of art, etc.