Special Education Centre no 2 in Lublin, the Hieronim Łopaciński Province Public Library in Lublin, and the curators of the event: Marta Lipińska-Wałdowska and Iwona Gęca would like to invite viewers to the exhibition entitled "Our School".
The exhibition opens the celebrations of the 45th anniversary of the Special Education Centre No.2 in Lublin as well as the act of giving the Centre the name of the Children of United Europe.
The exhibition is available to the audience in the opening hours of the Library until the 5th November 2013. Free admission.
Artistic work is one of the most effective forms of therapy for children with intellectual disability. For many disabled people, creating artwork is not only a form of rehabilitation but also a way of engaging in dialogue with the outside world.
Through active therapy the disabled have an opportunity to fulfill the need to be accepted and independent, to boost their self-confidence and to realize their wish for partnership and contacts with others. They start to see themselves not through their disability but through their strengths. Gaining any new skill always makes them feel joy, pride and satisfaction. For the mentally unimpaired it is also a great chance to get to know and understand disabled people and, as a result, learn to be more tolerant, respectful and to appreciate people with disabilities better. Despite their lack of education and struggles with the most basic needs, they create astonishingly beautiful objects; they teach us simplicity, freshness of approach to things, sensitivity and openness. Visual art facilitates contacts with others without verbalization of emotions, needs which makes it easier for children with intellectual disabilities and autism than a verbal contact.
Children with intellectual disabilities want to experience positive emotions such as the sense of joy and being successful in what they do. Creating artwork allows them to enter the world of colours, shapes and forms and, to a large extent, contributes to the enhancement of their aesthetic and emotional sensibility; often prevents bad humor and sooths depressive moods; as well as induces their cognitive curiosity.
Such activity as creating handiwork is helpful in developing various skills useful in daily life such as improving the fine motricity in hands, developing visual-motor perception, improving concentration and extending attention span. It also allows developing social competence, like harmonious group co-operation or induction of friendliness by teaching children to share tools during the classes. Public act of handing in diplomas for preparing works for the exhibition reinforces the activity, boosts the children’s self- esteem as well as the perception of them in the eyes of others.
The organization of the exhibition allows children with mild and serious intellectual disability as well as autistic children to actively participate in cultural and social life and learn how to behave properly as an artist/creator; it teaches them how to greet guests, offer them snacks, tank them for coming and showing interest and polite way of inviting viewers to see the displayed works.