There is an explosion in children's art initiatives and small kids are 'hungriest for imaginative stimulation', writes Sylvia Thompson.

Twenty years ago in Ireland, art-hungry teenagers collected postcards and posters of famous paintings by Van Gogh, Matisse and Picasso to stick on their bedroom walls. Their exposure to theatre was often confined to an annual trip to the Christmas pantomime. Now, many schoolchildren are creating their own Picasso imitations to adorn the classroom walls and attending theatre, dance and music shows that engage with them on several levels.

These are small examples of how in a generation, children's experience of art has been transformed. In fact, particularly in the last 10 years, there has been an explosion of arts activities for and by children in Ireland. Children's arts festivals with diverse workshop programmes, performances and readings by children's authors are taking place around the country.

Companies like Barnstorm Theatre Company in Kilkenny are specialising in theatre for younger people. And international children's theatre companies are regular visitors to children's art festivals such as Baboró in Galway city, Roolaboola in Castlebar and Spreacha in Draíocht Arts Centre, Blanchardstown, Dublin.

In the midst of this, the Ark children's cultural centre in Temple Bar, Dublin - unique in its exclusive focus on young people - has been a catalyst for change, encouraging innovation and providing quality art experiences for children. Eina McHugh, director of the Ark since August 2005, has successfully initiated co-productions with arts centres and theatre companies in Ireland and Wales and continues to foster new approaches to the arts that involve children producing artistic work themselves and responding to performances and exhibitions in the Ark and beyond.

This year, the Ark will be 12 years old and as a celebration of this "last year as a child", specific projects will engage older children creatively with film (in partnership with RTÉ Young People's Programmes) and drama (a theatrical adaptation of Beware of Storybook Wolves by Lauren Child, informed by workshops for 10 to 12-year-olds).

Another element of this year's programme is five day workshops for 12-year-olds in which "coming of age" rituals from many different cultures will be explored with researchers from the Children's Research Centre at Trinity College Dublin.

Such projects display a sophisticated approach to children and the arts that is echoed in Baboró, the international children's arts festival in Galway city. Its executive director, Lali Morris, speaks about the importance of giving children - and teachers and parents - opportunities to respond to the works of art in a festival, so as to get the full value from the experience.

She says: "We realised that to use the power of the arts, we had to give children a chance to talk about what they saw, felt and thought. It wasn't enough just to say 'I liked it or I didn't like it', so we follow the Lincoln Center techniques devised in the US, which prepare children to see a work of art, ask them open-ended questions afterwards and give them opportunities to respond in a creative way through workshops."

Morris enthuses about this broader approach to children's art which also encourages artists to have a more reflective and inspiring engagement with children in the process. However, she says that in comparison to some other countries - in Denmark, there are 90 professional children's theatre companies and local councils pay 50 per cent of costs for four annual performances in schools - there is little support from this artistic collaboration in Ireland.

She says: "Internationally, there is also a movement to present arts for very young children. Just like parents read to children from about six months and upwards, these arts activities introduce young children to dance, story, visual arts in an aesthetic way, preparing them to be creative thinkers."

McHugh notes that in the Ark, the age group that is "hungriest for imaginative stimulation" is the three to six-year-old age group. "We are seeing a huge upsurge in the numbers of three to six-year-olds coming to shows and workshops. And parents of younger children are delighted to find somewhere they can nourish the imagination of young children," she says.

Another place where young people's imaginations are being nourished is in Ballymun, Dublin. Mark O'Brien, the local arts development officer with Axis Arts and Community Centre, Ballymun, is co-ordinating Spark, an arts education programme that will involve 600 children, 24 teachers and 11 artists in various arts activities this year.

O'Brien explains: "It's a three-year project with six weeks work in different schools each year. The idea is to choose art that hasn't previously been done in the schools [this year animation, ballet, mosaic, sculpture, hip-hop dance are the art forms to be explored] and that the artist, teacher and young person is transformed by the experience so that the roots of the work remains in the school to be further developed."

Spark at Axis is part of a wider arts education programme, managed by West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds, England and funded by Provident Financial. "We are linked to seven other venues in England, Scotland and Wales and we meet twice a year to pool experiences. The whole project will be researched and documented and could be used as a model for the interaction between artists, teachers and young people," O'Brien says.

The idea of models for arts education programmes is timely given that the Arts and Education committee, formed last year and chaired by Arts Council member Mary Nunan, is calling for such proposals. Many of those working in the area of children in the arts also see the lack of specific arts policies for children as a problem.

Eina McHugh says that there is not enough cohesion at policy level.

"Children's work is being taken seriously and there is a 'will for excellence', but this has to be supported and taken forward at policy level. Many Government departments - the Department of Health and Children, the Department of Education and Science - and the Arts Council have intersecting interests in children and their cultural rights, but there is greater need for vision, social and cultural inclusion. Imaginative, innovative work with children takes time and there is need for policy structures that will secure funding for this work to continue."

Gaye Tanham is youth programmes manager at the Arts Council. She points out that there are three broad policy areas in which children and the arts are a focus.

"We've had a recent policy paper on children and the arts and last year, we published Artists in Schools Guidelines, which are best practice guidelines for bringing artists into schools. There has been an emphasis on visual artists, but we want to broaden that."

"In a recent public attitudes study carried out by the Arts Council, 85 per cent of respondents said that we need to [ further] develop arts for children and young people. What's needed now is more formal supports for children's art programmes," she adds.

Both McHugh and Tanham emphasise how the Government must recognise, respect and promote the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, in particular children's right "to participate freely in cultural life and the arts".

By focusing on this international agreement, arts administrators are pushing for more comprehensive policies for children and ultimately more State funding for children's initiatives.

Lali Morris adds: "There is a national awareness that the arts are important for children. We hope to address these issues at an international conference on the role of arts in childhood as part of Baboró in Galway next year."

For more information on the Ark, see www.ark.ie; for information on the Baboró Festival, see www.baboro.ie