Today, Covid 19 has brought us to think of the world beyond borders, to think of a global culture, all affected by the same pandemic. Our international networks, SMALL SIZE and ASSITEJ, share the great advantage of having already brought together artists from around the world, in order to reflect on the issue of childhood and artistic creation.

Such networks can help to invent the world of tomorrow for children. It seems essential to us today to foster access to art and artistic creation at an early age.
The current crisis forces us to invent, innovate and, sometimes, improvise… This is what artistic creation is all about: invent the world, to better understand it. Artists and very young children have an immense capacity for transforming things. And today, we need that, to be able to reinvent ourselves by being creative, individually and collectively, because the virus knows no geographical boundaries.
Children have this exceptional ability to grasp the world with all their senses, and, in this way, they are able to understand all its beauty. It is vital for us to be connected with our full sensory experience, as is the case in the live show. Digital practices numb creativity, they are extremely dangerous especially for very young children, and for the link between the parent and the child.
We believe that art for children is both a right and a duty, a way of repairing childhood that has been plagued by the crisis, which is losing its bearings. Art is a moment of sharing, of communion, which can play an essential role in the psychological reconstruction of populations, families, the parent-child bond, the bond between people, the bond to the body, the bond to nature.
The challenge today is to restore confidence by meeting our planet differently.
Children have a much more direct link to nature. Art has the ability to transform, nourish, unite, and connect us to the world.
We, as artists, speak out loud and clear about the child’s right to access culture, advocating around the world for “cultural health*”, and calling for governmental supports to enable us to play our role in childhood.

By Florence Goguel, Cie du Porte-Voix, small size network

* A National Strategy for Cultural Health. Promoting and sustaining the cultural and artistic awakening of the child from birth to age 3 in the link to her parent, Sophie Marinopoulos, 80 pages, 2019. This report commissioned by the French Government advocates for recommendations for the defence of the rights to culture of the young child, and introduces the notion of «cultural health».
https://www.assitej-international.org/en/2019/10/about-the-notion-of-cultural-health