BY CHILDREN FOR CHILDREN: LEOPOLD MUSEUM PRESENTS NEW AUDIO GUIDES FOR CHILDREN AND TEENAGERS AS WELL AS GAME FOR KIDS
05.04.2022
On 31st March, the Leopold Museum presented its new audio guides, developed especially for children and teenagers, as well as an innovative Game for Kids, to accompany the permanent exhibition Vienna 1900. Birth of Modernism. The Leopold Museum’s Director Hans-Peter Wipplinger welcomed the many guests, cooperation partners and those involved in the project at the museum’s auditorium, first and foremost the children and teenagers who recorded the new audio guides.
Hans-Peter Wipplinger emphasized the importance of art education: “It is one of the museum’s central tasks to specifically address and reach children and adolescents from various social and educational backgrounds. Our new audio guide initiative represents an absolute novelty in terms of the accessibility of art education. For these guides, the students of the Wiener Kindertheater not only adapted the texts prepared by art educators to suit individual ages but also recorded them for their peers.”
Sylvia Rotter, the Artistic Director of the Wiener Kindertheater, highlighted the immense power of speech as a means of expression: “Language sharpens our thoughts, motivates and inspires. It is my goal to familiarize the children with the wonder of the voice and the splendor of language.”
Gerhard Kuras, a representative of the Association for the Intergenerational Promotion of Art and Culture, who is a generous supporter of the project, believes that the shared goal of all those involved in the project is to champion the beauty and joy of art and to ensure its preservation: “I am convinced that the audio guides, made by children and teenagers for their peers, will be successful, as my own experience as an enthusiastic grandfather has taught me that kids much prefer listening to other children of their own age than to old grandpas.”
Anita Götz-Winkler, who heads the Leopold Museum’s art education department and coordinated the project, is pleased to have realized this initiative, following nine months of preparation, together with the museum’s team of art educators (Emmi Franke, Angelika Katzlberger, Alexandra Matzner, Susanne Rak and Regina Reisinger) and the acting talents from the Wiener Kindertheater, and is delighted that the audio guide for children aged 6 to 11 and for teenagers aged 12 to 17 will be available for free: “They afford children a closer understanding of the artworks through short, exciting and informative stories.”
Sonja Hammerschmid, Leopold Museum board member and former Minister of Education, thanked the children and teenagers for introducing other young people to art in such a wonderful way and for explaining to them what motivated the artists. Sonja Hammerschmid: “Our world has become incredibly complex, with innovations ranging from digitalization to artificial intelligence. In this context, the promotion of art and culture is of immense importance, as it teaches creative thinking and helps to find solutions for the problems of this world. It is especially important that we open up the world of art to children who are not able to regularly go to the theater, to concerts or to visit museums.”
Art adventures at the Leopold Museum
The audio guides for children and the Game for Kids complement the wide range of art adventures that young people can experience at the Leopold Museum. These further include tailor-made art education programs, the popular LEO Kids Studio, which takes place every Saturday and Sunday with support from the museum’s long-standing sponsor Wiener Städtische Versicherungsverein, as well as the possibility to celebrate children’s birthday parties at the museum.
The AUDIO GUIDES FOR CHILDREN AND TEENAGERS on the permanent presentation Vienna 1900. Birth of Modernism are available in two editions for two age groups. Children aged 6 to 11 embark on an adventure WITH POLDI AND LEO THROUGH THE MUSEUM. They discover the traces of Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt, and immerse themselves in the era around 1900! According to the storyline, the art fairy Poldi and Leo the lion were already around during that time, visiting artists in Vienna and all over the world. The children learn about their exciting encounters and listen to their thrilling stories! Helen Deutscher dubbed the clever art fairy, while Zeno Hoffmann leant his voice to Leo, Poldi’s most faithful friend. The English version was dubbed by Helen Deutscher and Fridolin Trachta. The audio guide for teenagers was recorded by Katharina Pammer and Nikolaus Demel in both languages.
During the presentation, Helen Deutscher afforded insights into Franz Sedlacek’s eventful and densely populated 1931 painting Winter in the City, while Zeno Hoffman talked about Gustav Klimt’s “Large Poplar” (1903) and the storm gathering in the gloomy landscape surrounding it. Fridolin “Lino” Trachta spoke in English about Oskar Kokoschka’s 1913 Dolomite landscape Tre Croci. Helen Deutscher, meanwhile, took listeners on an English-language journey into the world of the Wiener Werkstätte.
The Leopold Museum’s audio guide for teenagers aged 12 to 17 invites them to SEE IT FOR THEMSELVES, and asks them to engage their senses – to see, sense, feel and ask questions. They are given the opportunity to discover important works of the Viennese fin-de-siècle and interwar period accompanied by these “texts in their ears”. What was Vienna like at the time? What was happening in society and in art? What were the topics that were important to the artists? What are the stories told by their artworks? In their dialogues, Katharina Pammer and Nikolaus Demel talk about the artworks and the exciting stories surrounding them. During the presentation, they afforded guests insights into Gustav Klimt’s masterpiece Death and Life and Egon Schiele’s famous portrait of his partner and muse, his Portrait of Wally Neuzil.
The audio guides for children and teenagers are available for free at the museum’s cash desk upon deposit of an ID and can be downloaded at the Leopold Museum’s website – a service provided by the museum’s long-standing cooperation partner Hearonymus. The audio guides for children and teenagers, as well as the Game for Kids, were realized with the generous support of the Association for the Intergenerational Promotion of Art and Culture (VgkK).
A GAME FOR KIDS. DISCOVERING THE MUSEUM WITH POLDI AND LEO
The art fairy Poldi and the lion Leo invite kids to join them for a puzzle hunt through the exhibition Vienna 1900. Birth of Modernism! The Game for Kids is available for free at the museum’s cash desk. It allows children to answer tricky questions, to solve puzzles and to paint and draw. The Game for Kids is supported by AK Wien and VgkK.
Leopold Museum - Vienna 1900 for kids
Download the audio guide for children aged 6 to 11
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