Clay: Techniques, Experiences, Imaginaries

This new publication is a manual dedicated to the language of clay seen through the lens of Reggio Emilia’s municipal infant-toddler centers and preschools. It offers suggestions, experiences, and technical information through rich visuals and text.

Children’s use of this material forms a dialogue through which many expressive potentials emerge. The physical challenges and stumbles created by the material and the strategies adopted by the children to solve them are described. The discreet and fundamental role of an adult who designs contexts capable of prefiguring new and different situations is made visible.

This is a manual that speaks with a multiplicity of voices: the voice of clay and technical competency, the voice of children and teachers, and the voice of older children and adults frequenting ateliers at the Loris Malaguzzi International Centre.

Clay is a soft material, and good, with the right thermal sensations. It asks children to simultaneously effect multiple coordinations, involving the hands, the eyes, hearing and smell.
It entails investments of an affective, sensory, imaginative and ideational nature…
To a privileged degree, working with clay offers the extraordinary resources of being accompanied by language and socialization.
Loris Malaguzzi