The John S. Latsis Public Benefit Foundation supported the educational activities of the Museum of Cycladic Art (MCA) that commenced in September 2019, and more specifically the children’s drawing competition that is being held for 7th consecutive year and the programme "Together at the Museum” which is aimed at children with learning and developmental disabilities.

The children's drawing competition titled “Ι ΑΜ... How I see myself”, which started in October 2019, invited children aged 4-15 to introduce themselves to the world as they see themselves or as they dream of seeing themselves in a mirror. The competition's protagonist was a Cypriot bronze mirror, dating to 1200-1050 BC, which is displayed on the 3rd floor of the Museum as part of the exhibition “Cyprus – Ancient Art and Culture”. The children were asked to draw inspiration from this object and create their own works of art which will become the new exhibits of the Museum.

The winners of the contest will be selected in 2020 by the jury established by the Museum and the awards will be given in a special event at the Museum’s premises.The exhibition will contain the works of the winners, the runners up, as well as a large number of other submissions, and will follow a multi-sensory approach through screenings and sound installations.

The “Together at the Museum” programme was launched in 2016 and offers a range of free workshops for children and adolescents from 5 to 17 years old; it aims to encourage communication and their socialisation. In the workshops, playing becomes a medium of the participants’ selfexpression and the use of different materials contributes to their sensory adaptation to new stimuli. Various artistic means and processes are introduced as part of the activities, while body movement as an additional instrument for creative collaboration is also discovered. The participants come into contact with the collections of the Museum of Cycladic Art and the world of museums in general, gaining the opportunity to familiarise themselves with cultural institutions.

The following sub-activities were implemented under the “Together at the Museum” programme:

September – December 2019

• 210 students from 14 special schools or education centres for people with disabilities received guided tours to the Museum’s permanent collections and participated in special educational workshops on different themes based on culture and life in ancient Greece, which took place in the purposedesigned Museum workshop area.
• 176 children participated in the workshops implemented by the Museum of Cycladic Art in collaboration with the Athens General Children’s Hospital “P. & A. Kyriakou” and the “Floga” non-profit organisation for children with neoplasmatic diseases enrolled in primary school during their hospitalisation.
• In November 2019, the first educational workshops outside of Attica were conducted; 60 children from 4 special schools of Volos participated.

“Every March we witness with great enthusiasm drawings from children of all ages and the surprise is always the same. Their imagination and spontaneity creates a thousand of unexpected images, with each one of them hiding something of their special world. Every year the jury finds it really difficult to select the competition’s winners, even though in the end, the winners are all the participants and those who are fortune to visit the exhibition, which is the children’s great gift to us. The children’s drawing competition has become an institution; schools from all over Greece and abroad expect it and astound us with their works.”

Χara Marantidou Jury Member, Architect/Visual Artist