With the children from La Ribambelle Daycare.
In Criquetôt-L’Esneval (Seine-Maritime).
Fall 2022.
Childhood, that Mountain is the first project of the Centre photographique Rouen Normandie aimed at young children. This series of workshops led by Marion Dutoit at the La Ribambelle day nursery (Criquetôt-L’Esneval) is part of the Babil program, which promotes artistic and cultural awareness among young children. The project focuses on the first thousand days of an individual’s existence, the first three years of his or her identity. A thousand days is the time of the crèche, a decisive time, an apprenticeship in its own right: a mountain to climb.
The artist followed these young children for two weeks. She attended their sessions of body awareness, animal mediation and games, adding a plastic dimension and an artistic production to each of these activities. During the gymnastics sessions, the children were able to try their hand at bodypainting and, in a second creative phase, were able to shape small clay mountains which were then encapsulated to make snow globes – themselves assembled into mountains.
At the same time, Marion Dutoit was able to create a toddler-sized mountain in the school garden for the children to play on. The artist also produced a short video on the theme of ascent, collecting images day after day of children climbing, scaling and pulling themselves up, ready to climb the mountain that is childhood.
A postcard depicting the children in their gymnastics session and the hamsters in the animal mediation workshop was printed.
As part of the “Babil” initiative, which aims to foster artistic and cultural awareness in young children. A project led by the Rouen Normandy Photography Center, co-funded by the Normandy Regional Directorate of Cultural Affairs, the Seine-Maritime Family Allowance Fund, and the Le Havre Metropolitan Area as part of the Babil initiative.
