von Bonsdorff, Pauline

Dept of Art and Culture Studies. University of Jyväskylä

professor of art education

broadly interested in the arts of today

research interests: childhood and aesthetics, phenomenology, embodiment

Present research (main project): The existential aesthetics of childhood: communication, imagination, memory The focus of the project is in approaching child research and childhood studies from an aesthetic point of view; that is, applying phenomenological philosophical aesthetics (in particular Merleau-Ponty) on the understanding of children. The relevance of such a perspective might be argued from the rich aesthetic agency of children, which at least on a first glance is much more evident and apparently also more intense than the similar agency of most adults. The research aims to contribute to the understanding of children’s aesthetic agency through developing the analysis of interaction, imagination and memory as they interact. It also hopes to contribute to a philosophical discourse on children and childhood; which might be of interest also to fields such as the philosophy of mind, humanist psychology and cultural philosophy. The significance of the project lies in its attempt to combine the perspectives of several disciplines; contribute to an understanding of the aesthetic agency of children and human beings as both fruitful and necessary for human growth; and theoretically develop tools for such understanding.