In conversation with de Appel's team member Djuna Spreksel, artist and performer Nina Glockner touches upon topics such as the role of education programmes within cultural institutions, and artistic processes and interactive performances as a means of creating alternative languages to express oneself.

Chapter 2: The body as teacher with Nina Glockner (January - May 2023)

For the second chapter of The body as teacher, de Appel collaborated with the Kentalis Signis school for children (3 - 12 years old) with a language development disorder (TOS). A language development disorder (TOS) is a neurocognitive developmental disorder. It means that language is processed differently in the brain. For example, a child with TOS has great difficulty speaking or understanding language. As a result, language and speech development is different from that of peers.

Kentalis Signis theatre teacher Judith de Klerk indicated that artistic processes play an important role in the development of their pupils. Collaborating with artists and de Appel offers space to explore other ways of communicating and visual thinking through the creation of play environments. This allows pupils to create meaningful experiences themselves, in which they learn from each other. By playing together, imagination and cooperation are stimulated. Pupils are encouraged to imagine other worlds, allowing them to let go of certain fixed categories and hierarchies that often determine how we should communicate. From play, friendships can be built, and different ways of communicating and living together can be experimented with.

The school started looking for an artist with David Smeulders, curator of Education at de Appel. They partnered with Nina Glockner, whose art practice is closely linked to the children's world and the school's challenges. Glockner is interested in the (power) relations between body and language, between pupil and teacher, between objects and actions. With her art practice, Glockner aims to create a social play environment that consists of shaping the dialogues between people, objects and actions.

During the months of March, April and May 2023, Nina introduced the school and playfully the children explored the relationships between different geometric shapes, and their own bodies and surroundings. Putting the shapes together, the pupils created a self-portrait and new group compositions. After this, the pupils started drawing the shapes life-size on paper. By enlarging and cutting out the geometric shapes, the pupils were able to build a new relationship with (the size and colours) of the geometric shapes.

They translated this relationship into movements and words. The objects, colours, words and movements were playfully linked together in their own created game. The collection of objects that emerged from these sessions were displayed in the school. New shapes, colours and sizes could be seen everywhere, making a special group portrait of the whole school. Everything came together in a day of presentations where we showed the students their own unique ways of communicating through images, performance, dance and sound.