During the summer holidays, the association KRASS Cultural Education for Children and Young People visited playgrounds in Trier-North for two weeks with a team of professional artists and volunteers. There, the adults crafted and painted with more than 215 children. With this initiative, the association aims to promote equal opportunities.
Trier. A white van pulls up to the fence of the playground on Beutelweg. A woman in a green T-shirt with the "KRASS" club logo gets out. No sooner have she and her colleague started unloading the first boxes of paints, brushes, and beads from the van than the first children begin to gather on the playground. "I saw you guys and then I came here!" calls a boy of about six, who cycles up. "Can I join in too?" asks a girl. "Of course," replies the volunteer in the green T-shirt, inviting the children to take a seat at the picnic table and benches that she and her colleague have just set up between the merry-go-round and the seesaw.
Then it begins. The participants paint small canvases, bags, and gym bags, and make beaded bracelets – right there in the middle of the playground. Participation is free. Many are happy for the change of pace during the summer holidays and are proud that they can take their artwork home.
Although the children haven't known the adults for very long, some openly talk about who they're currently arguing with, what else is bothering them, but also what kind of music they listen to, their names, and where they live. Others speak little; they paint and draw dreamily.
A girl paints with brushes and acrylic paints on a large sheet of paper that an assistant has taped to a tree trunk. This allows the little girl to paint standing up, as if at an easel. The child hums and sings softly to herself as, brushstroke by brushstroke, a house with golden windows and a flower meadow for a front garden emerges on the paper.
With its mobile art project, the KRASS association aims to provide meaningful leisure activities, especially for young people who aren't going on vacation during the holidays. "Art comes to the children" is their motto. The project focuses on equal opportunities and the promotion of cultural education. Artists Laas Koehler and Claudia Pomowski, along with volunteers from the KRASS association, listen to the children, encouraging and inspiring them. Another goal is to awaken a joy of learning and experimenting with different materials.
The artist Claudia Pomowski, for example, mixed gouache paints with water and filled spray bottles with the mixture. The children were delighted when they were allowed to spray a white bedsheet with paint, creating an abstract work of art. Another time, the children, together with the artist, crushed sidewalk chalk, filled muffin cups with the chalk dust, and mixed it with water. Then, using brushes and the chalk-water mixture, they decorated the gray concrete slabs in the playground.
The initiative is a success: The association recorded more than 215 participants over the ten afternoons. The children come alone or accompanied by their older siblings, cousins, aunts, parents, or grandparents. Families from other parts of the city and the surrounding area also come to participate.
Participation is free. This is made possible thanks to financial support from the Sparkasse Trier Cultural Foundation, the Provinzial Rhineland-Palatinate Cultural and Social Foundation, the Rhineland-Palatinate Lottery Foundation, and a donation from Baker McKenzie. The Beutelweg Housing Cooperative (WoGeBe) supported the project by providing a room on Beutelweg in case of rain.
The association, which finances itself exclusively through donations and project-related funding at its Trier location, plans to repeat the campaign next year if another sponsor can be found.
Donation account of KRASS e.V.: IBAN DE51 5855 0130 0001 0246 52, BIC TRISDE55XXX
