OCCII Kinderpret in a nutshell
OCCII’s colourful wooden carved building is often compared to a fairytale’s witch candyhouse. And actually that is true, because the architect was inspired by a cuckoo clock designed as the Russian witch house on chicken legs from the Baba Jaga.
Since 26 years you and your little people can join many other fairytales in OCCII on the wednesday afternoon, because then we have Kinderpret!
Our kids program consists of single workshops on arts, crafts and nature, on interactive theatre performances and seasonal celebration parties. All ages are covered throughout the season. From 2 till 12 years old, but different every week.
In our 13 year existent spin-off Kids-kunstlaboratorium the older kids (age 8-12) can develop their talents and learn old crafts during series of 6 or 10 sessions on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. In the end they will do a public presentation e.g. a concert with their new rock band or an exhibition of their screen-printed clothes.
As being part of the OCCII and Binnenpret our focus naturally grew into the DIY direction in our way of creating and educating. We have seen that collaborations work best with both artists who are enthusiastic of what they do and kids who subscribe because they are interested. If that experimenting together happens in mutual respect it can lead to so much awe, fun and freedom plus fresh styles of creation. We therefore often work with artists like musicians, sculptors, bookbinders, upcyclers, filmers etc. who we know from the squat scene.
There has been a history of mutual exchange, as Kinderpret has also voluntary provided the kids programs on the Anarchist Pinksterlanddagen in Appelscha, Robodock and ADM festivals, FAF, Counter Culture, Incubate, SOTU, Bajesdorp aswell as for smaller parties in a lot of other squats and some street actions. For one of them we created the live board game Kraakopoly (squatopoly).
We love to be open for all kids and have always encouraged the social and cultural mix of them, so in the coming time we try to also make it also easier for children of refugees and a HVO to find and join us.
In the past we have made our own annual interactive theatre adventures in OCCII with a bunch of enthusiastic volunteers in changing composition under the name of the Landbouwers. We built Lands or alternative worlds where kids could enter through a huge painting and they were asked to help solving the problems or mysteries with the beings inside. We adults enjoyed the creation of them at least as much as the kids who were part of the adventure i guess! That is to me the main meaning of ‘Kinderpret’…
On festivals the same group used to make theatrical Adventure Tracks about social or environmental issues. Besides inviting artists in OCCII, we love to create our homemade workshops aswell. Big hits were e.g. Action Paint , Herbal Cosmetics Lab, Fairy Garden and Energy Lab. Also the seasonal celebrations with music, acts, games and crafts like Halloween, Imbolc, Spring, Chinese New Year and the Kids Fancy Fair, are of our own making. In may and september, we take the kids outside in the great Binnenpret garden and have the activities there.
As for everyone this spring went different. We had to cancel 23 of our programmed actvities, but managed after the first of june to continue and finish the already started Kidskunstlab series Bandjesbende even with a small rocking concert and Pottenbakken with a little exhibition. For now we have to create our autumn program in a slightly different way. Where we could host 120 small and big visitors on our seasonal parties, and 90 for a theatre performance during the last 25 years, we now can do 30 or 20 on reservation only. But that hasn’t to be such a shame. It might be even more cosy… So we warmly invite you to visit our new program on the website occii.org/kinderpret and make your reservation if there is something your child and you wish to attend. We hope to see you soonish! The second of September, after a period of silence we happily re-open the wooden doors of our fairytale candyhouse of the witch!