Eighth Stop
Workshop at Kulturhuset Blå Stället · March 2026
Workshop Leaders: Leila Natsheh and Simona Cavalieri
Workshop Assistant: Priyadarshini Chilaka
Workshop Assistant: Priyadarshini Chilaka
Photo: Leila Natsheh
Our workshop at Kulturhuset Blå Stället revolved around creating a map of our favorite existing and dream places in Angered Centrum.
When working with the first group of children, we asked them to look at set of simple icons representing outdoor spaces, explain their interpretation and why they chose the icons they did, as well as where would they like to place them on the map.
Photo: Leila Natsheh
Interpreting Icons
The icons, being somewhat abstract and open to interpretation, led children to look for a “correct” answer rather than feeling fully free in their choices.
The children were then encouraged to draw places that they like and are not already in the set of icons. Here imagination kicked in, and amongst many creative ideas were: an airport to be able to go somewhere far away, sushi, candy, picnics and other food focused alternatives to socialize with friends and take a break, a monster in the forest and besides him a pear tree like one child’s grandfather has.
Photo: Leila Natsheh
”We should have a grocery store close to the football place, so that when you’re tired and hungry from playing, you can buy something and rest" — X, 8
Storytelling at The Core
From these interactions and stories, we observe that there are certain themes that keep coming back every time we work with children. Storytelling is at the core of how children perceive the world around them, and it is what makes places and life fun, hence the monster during a more serious and not so entertaining activity. Food is for socializing, and taking a break, and is very present in their daily life. Places, and things are almost always tied to memories, to people, and there is an emotional attachment that comes naturally when talking about them.
We then asked the children to categorize the places that are now filling the map: most fun places, best places when it is raining, places where children should not go, and they added “places where children MUST go”.
Photo: Leila Natsheh
With the next group of children we focused on categorizing the icons and talking about which places are active, which are calm and relaxing, and the children added categories such as: important places, and places to eat and take a break.
Photo: Leila Natsheh
Iterations Moving Forward
In this workshop we came to two main conclusions on how to iterate this workshop for our upcoming sessions. One is to use more direct and accurate visual representations of places, rather than an icon showing ice-cream, use an actual picture of an ice-cream kiosk. The ice-cream icon was interpreted as ice-cream by young children, and not the implication of an ice-cream kiosk.
Another conclusion was to use emoticons and visual representations of feelings tied to places, rather than words, to test if that would be more relatable for children, and easier to navigate when describing how they are and feel in places.
One other iteration we thought of to make the workshop more engaging would be to tie the activity to our spaceship storyline, and have a prop — a message from Allen the alien from a far away planet…
Would you like to join us next time?