Kids and teens

Children’s programmes are very important to GES-2 House of Culture. We see children of all ages not just as spectators, but as our co-participants and co-creators. How our projects for this audience look depends largely on the audience itself.

Our work is founded on five core values.

Play
We believe that a person develops throughout his or her life, and that play and socialising are as important (and sometimes, much more) as study in this development.

Experiment
We take innovative approaches with familiar formats.

Inclusivity
We do not just create events for children, but also for parents and children, even for parents without children. People of different ages—preschoolers, primary school children, teenagers, adults—play, learn, and create together at the House of Culture.

Diversity
We love projects that span different genres, fields of knowledge, and art forms.

Co-creation
We embrace the principle of co-creation, encouraging children to act as co-curators, experts, and facilitators.

In our work with teenagers, we aim to rethink common hierarchical models of cultural and social interaction, such as “museum – visitor,” “teacher – student,” “adult – teenager.”

GES-2 seeks to provide a space where new strategies and new terminologies can emerge. Here, every teenager is treated as a young adult. Their experience is unique and important— it doesn’t matter whether they know how to spell the word ‘"performance" correctly or what grade they got in yesterday’s exam.

First and foremost, our programmes for youth explore everyday life through the prism of art and the perspective of a young adult. Everyone has the right to be heard at GES-2. Our aim is to create a platform for expression and dialogue, free from moral censure and prejudice.

GES-2. Young Adults is a project created by teenagers for teenagers. It is about growing up, finding one’s own identity, and discovering the inner resources to transform oneself.

Photo: Anya Todich

The first season of GES-2. Young Adults ran from mid-January to the end of April 2022. It consisted of two blocks: “Conversations” and “Practice/Documentation.” Twice a week, thirty participants aged between 16 and17 discussed the projects of the House of Culture’s first season together with special guests ranging from stand-up comedians and TikTok stars to curators and journalists. The season ended with an alternative version of a school graduation ball.

A group of the most active participants in the project’s first year took part in the development of its second season, which began in November 2022 and ended with another graduation ball at the end of April 2023.