Premise
Eighteen rights, twenty-seven languages
Eighteen principles affirming, in 27 languages, the right of children everywhere in the world to art and culture. This is the content of the Charter of Children’s Rights to Culture and Art, created in 2009 in Bologna from an idea by La Baracca – Testoni Ragazzi, a group that has worked in theatre for children and young people for over 30 years.
The communication project, which has gathered support across Europe, has been patronised and awarded by the highest Italian and European institutions. Its purpose is to spread the knowledge and practice of fundamental rights at a time when the world of culture and artistic expression is experiencing great difficulty. And, as often happens in times of crisis, it is the weakest members of society — often the very young — who bear the consequences.
The artistic direction and organising staff of the Imaginaria festival and the Catch The Moon festival endorse and share all 18 points of the Charter of Children’s Rights to Culture and Art, presenting, within the Imaginaria festival, the Imaginaria Kids section dedicated to children and young people, and the Catch The Moon festival.
Imaginaria Kids and the Catch The Moon festival aim to promote and spread the art of animation through screenings, meetings with authors, animated readings, workshops and exhibitions. Imaginaria Kids and Catch The Moon are also an open workshop for new forms of collaboration and proposals to develop and carry out beyond the festival period.
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The Charter of Rights
Children have the right
Charter of Children’s Rights to Art and Culture
01
to access art in all its forms: theatre, music, dance, literature, poetry, cinema, visual and multimedia arts
02
to experience artistic languages as “fundamental knowledge” in their own right
03
to take part in artistic processes that nurture their emotional intelligence and help them develop sensitivity and skills in a harmonious way
04
to develop, through their relationship with the arts, bodily, semantic and iconic intelligence
05
to enjoy quality artistic productions, created specifically for them by professionals, respecting different ages
06
to have a relationship with art and culture without being treated as “consumers”, but as competent and sensitive “subjects”
07
to attend the artistic and cultural institutions of their city, both with family and school, to discover and experience what their area has to offer
08
to take part in artistic and cultural events continuously, not occasionally, throughout their school and pre-school life
09
to share the pleasure of an artistic experience with their family
10
to have an integrated system between school and artistic and cultural institutions, because only a continuous exchange can offer a living culture
11
to attend museums, theatres, libraries, cinemas and other places of culture and entertainment together with their schoolmates
12
to experience artistic and cultural events accompanied by their teachers, who act as necessary mediators to support and enhance their perceptions
13
to a secular culture, respectful of every identity and difference
14
to integration, if migrants, through knowledge and sharing of the artistic and cultural heritage of the community they live in
15
to artistic and cultural projects designed with consideration for different abilities
16
to spaces designed and structured to welcome them at their different ages
17
to attend a school that is a real gateway to a widespread, public culture
18
to take part in the artistic and cultural offerings of their city regardless of their social and economic background, because every child has the right to art and culture
