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It's important to reflect on how the perception of these artistic expressions impacts children's learning.
A child's relationship with their surroundings has many layers, and learning can occur in the most everyday interactions and experiences, such as walking through the neighborhood or observing the facades of buildings. And from this observation of the city as a potential educational space comes an obvious observation: the strong presence of urban art on city walls and, more specifically, in schools and early childhood education centers. Just think of how many kindergartens you know whose facades feature some form of artistic expression.

Given the controversies sweeping São Paulo due to current mayor João Dória's recent decision to erase graffiti from the streets, it's important to reflect on how the perception of these artistic expressions impacts children's learning.

With this in mind, our partner Portal Aprendiz published an interview with educator Maria Luiza Viana, from the Federal University of Minas Gerais, about the impact of urban art on children's perception of the city. "As much as we dream of a world where walls don't separate the school from its surroundings and its community, it's possible to see, in the colorful displays, the desire to transcend this segregation," the text argues.

For Maria Luiza, who worked on two projects that connect education and urban art – Escola Integrada and Projeto Guernica – there's rich potential in the discoveries that arise when a school opens. She cites the example of a school in Minas Gerais that, while talking to neighbors about painting the walls in the area, discovered a visual artist who lived there.

"Urban art has this potential to activate community connections that truly transform environments. It's not the government arriving in a place and 'improving' it. It's the key stakeholders changing and breaking the stigmas of certain spaces," the researcher argues.
Educating City

The professor argues that urban art is directly related to the concept of an educating city, a topic we frequently discuss here at Lunetas. For her, occupying the city with children is a political act and involves practicing daily actions that offer an alternative to car traffic and excessive consumption.

"On the street, the experience of art takes place differently than in a classroom or studio," the educator points out. "With the city as a learning object, you begin to perceive your surroundings, absorbing elements that are present in the environment, such as color, shape, space, light, and surface material," she adds.
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• Tags
• #Urban art
• #children
• #learning
• #artistic
• #São Paulo