SOAS Research Online

Abstract

Hani dealt with the child’s world in several films and a number of essays. I was in contact with the Japanese “movement of artistic and creative education” of the fifties. In Children Who Draw I followed a schoolteacher from this movement who strengthened the development of subjectivity throughout his classes of plastic education. Hani showed how drawing was a way of emotional expression to children and thus it was a practice not only linked to the arts but also to psychology. Through Machino’s works, a student who initially was not able to portray anything, the documentary reveals how drawing became a reflection of the children’s spiritual state. However, the monitoring of this character evidenced the links of drawing with the inner universe was volatile and was conditioned by external stimulus.