As a researcher with a focus on children’s art education, I have always been concerned about children’s aesthetic engagement. How to let children actively participate in art activities is the direction of my research. In order to better participate in children’s art teaching, I collaborate with children to experiment with various painting forms, from ink, acrylic, watercolour to handmade clay. This allows me to conceive of richer activities for educational workshops.

In my recent work I have found that different countries have different conceptions of children’s art and different approaches to education. I explore this in my documentary ‘Let kids paint like kids’. In some places art education focuses on traditional skill development, no doubt laying a solid foundation for the child’s future artistic development. In others, children are allowed to develop freely, expressing themselves and experimenting with different mediums so that their painting remains childlike and innocent, simple. I hope that my research will help me to combine different views in creating my own model for children’s aesthetic education.