Väntan (Waiting)

The Väntan exhibition illustrates educational processes and methods for working with children and young people in difficult situations – orphanages, as refugees and waiting in refugee centres.

The Väntan exhibition illustrates educational processes and methods for working with children and young people in difficult situations – orphanages, as refugees and waiting in refugee centres.

The exhibition targets all those involved in this field, both general public and professionals, who are interested in learning how to work with vulnerable children and how you can use dance, contact improvisation and architectural teaching to approach difficult issues.

The exhibition illustrates three projects executed between 2011 and 2016: Home in Moldavia, the Ukraine and Belarus, and Waiting in the Margins in Georgia. The exhibition has the same name as, and represents a conclusion to, the third and final project, Väntan or Waiting. Young people recently arrived in Sweden have been invited to movement, improvisation, architecture and art via a number of workshops. As supervisor, Lava-Dansproduktion initiated all three projects and has executed them in cooperation with ArkDes. The project is illustrated by means of video and photographs in addition to material created.

The main target was to provide young people with the opportunity and means to reflect on their situation, and on what home and waiting mean to them. Various exercises involving dance and architectural teaching have allowed the participants to play, dance, build, construct, draw, paint, speak and be heard. With the first two projects, Home and Waiting in the Margins, the young people created and held performances that subsequently toured in their respective countries.

The Väntan project was executed in 2016 in Stockholm, with support from Stockholm County Council. Each school – the Annersta school in Huddinge, the Äng school in Sundbyberg and the Valsta school in Sigtuna – has participated with pupils in introductory classes for young people recently arrived in Sweden, at six different workshops. Most of the pupils are waiting in refugee centres.