Music & Movement: A Visual Workshop with Preschoolers

Project Summary

This two-session workshop was designed to explore the relationship between sound and visual expression in preschool-aged children (5–6 years old). Each child completed a finished canvas painting, developed through a guided process that integrated music, rhythm, and hand movements as tools for creating. The aim was to let children experience how rhythm and emotion in sound can influence shape, color, and gesture in visual art.

Workshop Format & Execution

A total of 27 children, aged 5 to 6, participated in the program, divided into four groups.
Each group joined two 60-minute sessions, with an additional shared breakfast before the first session to establish familiarity and trust between the artist and the children.

For each group, two different music tracks were introduced in the first session. A voting system helped the children decide which piece they wanted to work with. Before painting, they were encouraged to describe the emotions or images the music evoked in them.

Session 1: Music & Color

Children listened to their selected music piece and began painting the entire surface of their canvas using larger brushes. The focus was on expressing the overall atmosphere and emotional response to the music through bold colors and broad gestures.

Session 2: Music, Rhythm & Detail

In the second session, children used smaller brushes, sponges, and other tools to work on the top layer of their canvas. The aim was to introduce the idea of synchronizing hand movement with rhythm as a form of connecting the visual process with sound.
This led to the addition of details, patterns, and rhythmic marks that completed their artwork.

Four sample Art works produced through the Project

Some children responded more to musical rhythm, while others were more attuned to the mood and tone of the sound. Each interpretation was personal and encouraged.

Experience & Observations

Children thoroughly enjoyed the process and nearly all engaged in their own way. Interestingly, many of them showed a genuine interest in cleaning the brushes and tools, doing it carefully and with joy. This spontaneous cooperation was reminiscent of Charles Fourier’s idea of harmonious task division in his utopian urban models.

While there were a few moments of unfortunate intervention from certain kindergarten staff members—interruptions that leaned against the artistic spirit of the workshop—these had minimal impact on the overall experience and were gracefully bypassed.

Final Exhibition & Art Sale

The project concluded with a public exhibition in the kindergarten café, where all artworks were beautifully displayed. Families were invited not only to view the results but also to purchase their child’s artwork, with prices to be negotiated directly between the child and the buyer.

Visitors were greeted with this invitation:

If you’ve ever dreamed of owning a truly original and powerful work of art, this is a rare opportunity to purchase one directly from a real artist — one who has not yet had their creative instincts dulled by the constraints of the existing social order.

Photos of the full collection of artworks and the exhibition space are included below.

Reflections on Limitations and Structural Obstacles

As in any collaborative environment, challenges arose—not just technical but also human. While we do not expect perfection from anyone (ourselves included), it is worth noting that in a country like Germany, where the ideological shadow of the last hundred years still lingers, expecting complete non-discriminatory and humanistic behavior at all levels is perhaps unrealistic. Just as individuals need time to unlearn bad habits, nations too need time to grow out of historical errors.

In my view, a kindergarten educator should be a kind of philosopher—someone who understands early childhood not only practically but also deeply. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. During the project, I witnessed behaviors that were at times unthoughtful, even harmful. These included:

  • Preventing a non-German child from attending the second session of the workshop, despite my clear invitation.
  • Attempting to force verbal responses from children in ways that contradicted the sensory and emotional essence of the project—encouraging them to describe abstract rhythmic and emotional lines in literal terms (e.g. “this looks like a sun,” “this looks like a table”) rather than allowing free expression.
  • Replacing absent pre-school children with younger German children, undermining the structure of the groups.
  • Applying adhesive tape directly to the children’s artworks in order to attach name labels, damaging all 27 paintings.
  • Trying to reduce the scale of the project under the pretense that “these children are from disadvantaged backgrounds, unlike those from richer neighborhoods like Rüttenscheid.”
  • And perhaps most frustratingly, making a verbal promise of payment for the project that was never honored.

I had trusted the kindergarten with my time, energy, and artistic vision. I considered the kindergarten space sacred and did not even open the subject of payment when the project was proposed. I believed in the integrity of the invitation. But instead of a formal thank-you or fair compensation—even at the symbolic level—I was given a basket of chips, chocolates, and factory snacks.

While I did not enter the project with financial expectations, I have participated in many similar initiatives where, without any prior negotiation about money, I was offered a thank-you letter and a modest honorarium—both of which I deeply appreciated. In this case, however, I was left with a bittersweet reminder that genuine contribution is not always recognized within institutional structures.