Annual day encourages kids to take an interest in culture

The second annual Arts Day for Children, which took place yesterday, attracted 30,000 participants across Flanders and Brussels, 5,000 more than last year. The initiative was spearheaded in 2012 by Flemish culture minister Joke Schauvliege, who announced that the third Sunday of every November would be dedicated to getting kids interested in all forms of arts, from dance to filmmaking.

About 250 organisations hosted events for the day. The Bijloke in Ghent presented concerts and workshops; Museum M in Leuven gave a special child-oriented tour of their big winter show about Michiel Coxcie; and the Mu.Zee in Ostend managed to get kids interested in Surrealism through creative activities after a big breakfast. AKO Literature Prize winner Joke van Leeuwen held a “kids college” in a “Harry Potter Library”, while photographers with exhibitions at the Aalst Contemporary Arts Centre took children to a jungle in Ecuador through their work.

“It’s a step into culture,” said Schauvliege about the day. “It’s important that children discover culture with their families. … That will ensure that culture will be part of their lives later on. It seems that many children, together with their parents and grandparents, have given Kunstendag a permanent place in their agendas. I hope that this first step has given them a taste for culture that they will carry forward into the future.”