Fröbel Fröbeled

The output consists of the installation of a group of 105 photographs and 11 sets of objects. The subject of the research was the Kindergarten as conceived and founded by German pedagogue Friedrich Fröbel (1782–1852). The output was developed through a co-production between 5 international institutions over four years. It has been presented in 8 international solo exhibitions and included in 2 international group exhibitions and viewed by audiences of over 90,000. See Appendix, page 46. The research focused on the educational material ‘gifts’ created by Fröbel. It is the first time that Fröbel’s ‘gifts’ and pedagogical system have featured in an exhibition format. Froment produced facsimiles of Fröbel’s educational ‘gifts’, toys based on the division of a cube into smaller increments.Froment exhibited these objects alongside photographs of the toys ‘in action’, staged according to instructions given in Fröbel-based early handbooks. Froment’s research departed from the often passive, archival display of historical functional artefacts, to actively explore the process of knowledge acquisition through play. Through this, the work provoked broader questions around the relationships between object, knowledge, body and institution. Taking a pedagogical system as its theme, the output reversed the usual positions of art and educational objects within the context of the contemporary art institution.