Kulttuuriaitta in English

Kulttuuriaitta - Children´s culture network

Kulttuuriaitta is a children’s culture network operating in Jyväskylä, Muurame, Hankasalmi, Toivakka, Uurainen, Laukaa, Petäjävesi, Keuruu, Multia and Äänekoski in Central Finland. It is one of the original founder members of the Association of Finnish Children’s Cultural Centers. Kulttuuriaitta provides arts and cultural opportunities for children and professionals working with them, offering multi-disciplinary, participatory and inspiring workshops, cultural outings, events. It also runs training sessions, seminars and networking events for people working within the sector.  The network also awards the bi-annual children’s culture prize that celebrates fresh and innovative contributions made to children’s culture by local practitioners. 

Kulttuuriaitta’s work is based on ambitious cultural education curricula, and it offers training opportunities for education professionals. Our facilitator database offers a wealth of useful contacts too.

Association of Finnish Children’s Cultural Centers

Kulttuuriaitta is a member of the Association of Finnish Children’s Cultural Centers. The Association’s purpose is to support the work of professional children’s cultural centres, raise the profile of art and culture aimed at children and promote skills development within the sector. Every year, the association convenes a National Forum on Children’s Culture, providing excellent opportunities for networking.

Kulttuuriaitta in Jyväskylä

Kulttuurineuvola

Kulttuurineuvola first kicked off in Jyväskylä in 2019 and it is run in maternity and child health clinics in collaboration with culture services, social and health care providers. The aim is to provide staff working at maternity and child health clinics with the advice and information they need to disseminate information about cultural events happening in the local area to young families. All clinics now have named cultural coordinators in place, and training will be offered by local arts and culture organisations, including private and public bodies.

Arts and culture training for expectant first-time parents and families with babies

Kulttuurineuvola’s family training sessions offer sneak-peeks and tasters on upcoming cultural events for families with babies along with useful hints on how you can explore your own creativity at home through songs, rhymes and play. These sessions will be run at a number of different venues, including libraries and art museums. You can sign up via your local mother and child health clinic website.

Early childhood education programme   

As a part of the early chilhood education programme, each day care centre in the city of Jyväskylä, both municipal and private day care centres, will be provided with a cultural experience every year. Day care centres are invited to choose their own performer / show, that will visit the day care centre over the course of the year. The shows and performances cover a variety of arts, for example music, theatre, puppet theatre and circus. 

Each year, the early childhood workshop programme turns its attention to one particular area of Jyväskylä, visiting day care centres in that part of the city. All groups within each day care centre are invited to choose their own workshop topic, and an artist will be on hand to facilitate it with the children over the course of a year. The workshop topics include for example music, visual and word art as well as circus.

Kompassi - cultural education plan

Kompassi, the City of Jyväskylä’s cultural education curriculum, invites children to explore art and culture. It incorporates annual cultural excursions as well as workshops and performances involving a variety of genres. In the course of the year, all children from pre-school age onwards will be involved in Kompassi activities. These include arts workshops for pre-school and school children, cultural visits to museums and galleries, workshops for students with additional needs as well as touring arts workshops, which will tour a different school district each year. The workshops cover a variety of topics including visual arts, drama, music, media art and circus.

National Taidetestaajat (Art Testers Campaign) delivers cultural delights to all Year 8 students

Kulttuuriaitta also acts as a coordinator for a number of other projects and initiatives, including the nationwide Art Testers programme.

Art Testers is the largest culture education program in Finland, offering all 8th graders and their teachers 1–2 annual visits in esteemed cultural institutions. Our program reaches over 65,000 people annually in all Finnish municipalities. The attractions and the number of visits vary according to the funding of our program. The core goal of our program is to offer young people experiences in art and to find them tools to form well-versed opinions on their experience. What did they think? Would they revisit?

The Art Testers program is produced by the Association of Finnish Children’s Cultural Centres. The program was initiated in the school years 2017–2020 by our main financer, the Finnish Cultural Foundation, followed by The Swedish Cultural Foundation in Finland. In fall 2020, the Ministry of Education and Culture joined in by the decision of the Parliament.

Key persons, contact information

Coordinator Marjo Tiainen-Niemistö
p. 040 736 4328
marjo.tiainen-niemisto[at]jyvaskyla.fi

Culture designer Maria Poikonen
p. 050 306 3967
maria.poikonen[at]jyvaskyla.fi

Regional coordinatior / Art Testers Campaign Hanna Brotkin
p. 050 325 2904 
hanna.brotkin[at]jyvaskyla.fi / hanna.brotkin[at]taidetestaajat.fi