Children’s Drawings as Cultural Heritage: Insights from Fondazione PInAC’s International Archive

This contribution introduces the EU-funded doctoral research project “Children's Drawing and the Heritagization of Childhood Cultures”, which focuses on enhancing and implementing an international collection of children’s drawings. This extensive archive, comprising over 8,000 expressive works created by children from 79 countries, is housed and displayed at Fondazione PInAC, a small museum in Rezzato, Italy. The collection provides a unique lens to explore childhood cultures across different regions and historical periods. By treating children’s drawings as expressive and cultural artifacts, the project emphasizes that children are not mere reproducers of culture but active contributors to it. Their creative works serve as a vital means of understanding the perspectives, experiences, and social roles of children throughout history. Recent research underscores the importance of acknowledging children’s agency, particularly in cultural contexts, while recognizing the significant influence adults have during the creation and interpretation of these works. Adults play a pivotal role also in managing these creations, particularly in shaping the archiving and cataloguing processes. Their decisions significantly influence not only the organizational structure and interpretive meaning of the archive but also the future research potential it holds for various academic disciplines. Considering the limited involvement of children in decision-making processes concerning their own cultural heritage, this research highlights the importance of fostering children’s creative expression in a manner that respects their autonomy. It also emphasizes the need for adults to approach children’s cultural heritage without imposing adult-centric perspectives, ensuring that children’s voices are authentically preserved and valued. Institutions like Fondazione PInAC advocate for the recognition of children’s productions as meaningful historical sources that illuminate the lived experiences of past and present childhoods. Hence, these drawings, created from children’s own abilities, motivations and interests, serve as self-crafted documentation of their lives within their specific social and cultural contexts.