Alexander Ivanov

10.22 Museum Summer Camp: From Craft to Design (Workshop)

Alexander Ivanov – Regional Museum in Olomouc, Czech Republic

Zuzana Brabcová – Regional Museum in Olomouc, Czech Republic

Abstract:

The workshop will present the process and outcomes of the innovative children’s summer camp From Craft to Design, created through a collaboration between the Museum Education Centre at the Regional Museum in Olomouc (RMO) and the Lifelong Learning Centre at the Faculty of Education, Palacký University Olomouc. The camp was held in the premises of the RMO. The goal of the camp was to give children aged 7 to 12 an opportunity to immerse themselves in the world of traditional crafts and inspire them to connect these with modern design. Workshop participants will learn how children were guided to explore traditional Czech crafts such as jewellery making, leather goods, wooden toys, and puppets and how they used traditional techniques to create their own design products. A key aspect of the program was group work, where children formed a fictional company with its own name, logo, and marketing strategy. Each group developed its own products, which were then presented at a final market event. Here, parents and visitors were able to explore the results of the children’s work and even try out workshops led by the children themselves. The workshop will introduce participants to the methodology and organizational aspects of the camp, emphasize the role of teamwork and entrepreneurial thinking that the children learned in practice, and demonstrate how the fusion of traditional techniques with a modern approach fosters creativity and manual skills.