In 2020 the team of the Kunstbus e. V. converted an old fire truck into an art bus. One year later, in 2021, we founded our association „Der Kunstbus e.V. – Der KUBU kommt“.
Since September 2021, we have been using the „KUBU“ (art bus) to carry out various projects in Karlsruhe and throughout Germany, in which children and young people can express themselves artistically.

Our team consists of therapists and educators who have made the individual creative promotion their goal. The goal of the association is to reach places where there is a need for artistic offerings. The „KUBU“ invites its visitors to slow down and creates space for encounters with oneself and with others. It is an artistic „treasure trove“ with tools, materials and stimuli for all the senses.

Time frame

The „KUBU“ is located in Karlsruhe. Here, projects can be planned from one day to several weeks or months. Germany-wide projects are also possible, but these should last at least one week.

Do you have concrete ideas for a project? Please feel free to contact us!

Cooperations

We are happy to cooperate with schools, daycare centers, art schools, youth centers, refugee shelters, and festivals.

You have an idea for KUBU but your institution is not on the list? No problem, we are also open for other formats!

Artistic design (free as well as theme- and method-based)

Movement (yoga, dance)

Circus (stilt walking, unicycling, juggling, poi playing)

Theater (improv theater, making masks and props, sewing costumes)

Music (making music and musical instruments)

Making natural dyes

Pulling herbs

Cooking

Discussion room for personal topics

Open studio

Our offerings take place in group or individual settings depending on the project.

Oriented to the needs and wishes of the children, we provide impulses, material and a safe space. This can be used to experience and express oneself creatively. For this purpose, we offer a spectrum that ranges from artistic-formative methods to movement, music and theater. Through the appropriate method, the creators can experience themselves physically and mentally, ignite passion and discover their own abilities. This stimulates contact with oneself and strengthens self-efficacy and identity.

It is important that the participants can bring in their own ideas and suggestions. Because as soon as they are allowed to do so, they are fully involved and experience themselves, they learn to show themselves and perceive each other.

Examples:

Upcycling

Already used materials are artistically recycled – This increases the awareness of limited resources and the relationship to one’s own environment.

Rhythm

In the rhythms we initiate, hands, feet, the whole body and everyday objects become instruments of rhythm. With the help of the method „Bodypercussion“ rhythm, movement, hearing and body feeling are combined in a wonderful way.

Creative dance

Dance serves as a means of expression to express feelings, to live through them and to get rid of excess energy. Creative dance focuses on free improvisation.

Target group

The art bus is open to all interested people, regardless of cultural, religious and socio-economic background. The focus is on educational work with children and young people.

With the help of the „KUBU“ a safe space is created in which curiosity and playfulness can be explored. In addition to experiencing the various creative offerings, we also invite people to talk about personal topics that have little space in everyday life or are taboo (for example: Sexuality, equality, gender and diversity, flight).

Art is a mediator and a non-verbal language that expands the spectrum of possibilities for encounter. The aim is to provide access to artistic experience, playful discovery and the testing of expressive possibilities. Through the diverse forms of encounter offered by the art bus, we attract curiosity and joy in life in the participants. This is to be promoted in order to strengthen the resources of each person, especially the child.

Following concepts of Reggio education and elements of Waldorf education, we accompany the children and young people on their way. We provide creative stimuli by offering a safe space with opportunities and materials for exploration. Encouragingly, we support the children to enter new territory and expand their skills.

The bus serves as a safe place for the children to feel secure and well cared for. Based on the model of „child friendly space“ from emergency pedagogy https://www.freunde-waldorf.de/en/emergency-pedagogy/, traumatized children and adolescents can also find a place of retreat in „KUBU“.

As therapists and educators, we experience in our daily work that movement and art hold many healing potentials.

As experiences in the research context of the „Transcultural Art Projects 1 & 2 “ https://transcultural-art-project.jimdofree.com/already prove, art leads to an increased body and emotion perception. Art can promote individual expression and contribute to a strengthening of identity and will. At the same time, free and guided play with the given materials and body movement lead to joy in discovering the self and the environment.

Our offer stimulates to discover one’s own potential. This can offer a great new field of possibilities for people who, due to their life structure or socio-economically difficult background, rarely come into contact with art and culture.

We use this form of aesthetic education to increase social sensitivity and empathy and to open up creative potential.