Enhancing children’s cultural heritage: the drawings collection of the Pinacoteca Internazionale dell’Età Evolutiva Aldo Cibaldi of Rezzato

The purpose of this workshop is to bring insights into the Pinacoteca Internazionale dell'Età Evolutiva Aldo Cibaldi of Rezzato (Italy), a Museum that preserves and promotes more than 8,000 children's drawings. The collection, started by a school director in the 1960s and still in progress, gathers drawings produced in 77 countries around the world since the early 1900s. Thus, referring to an international collection, questions need to be asked about how the drawings are collected and catalogued in order to be able to enhance the authors and their contexts of production. Starting from an introduction on the natural development of the expressive graphic activity in the child, a reflection will be made on the cultural traits and possible conditioning present in drawing that mainly depend on childhood life within society. In this context, the drawing – as a cultural product and a creative process – has to be recognized as children's cultural heritage.