First of all - the enigmatic tree is an interactive and ecologically sustainable project in which, through pedagogical methods ,kids created from wood and other natural materials found in the environment. The toys are made by hand, coated and polished with linseed oil.
The workshops within the program are intended for children of preschool and primary school age, who will develop their creative impulse through exploratory play, storytelling and reflection, and learn to handle tools and skills
National
Croatia
{Empty}
Mainly rural
It refers to other types of transformations (soft investment)
No
No
Yes
As an individual
First name: Matija Last name: Bobek Gender: Male Nationality: Croatia Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: I.G.Kovačića 6, Lopatinec Town: Čakovec Postal code: 40311 Country: Croatia Direct Tel:+385 92 269 7644 E-mail:bobolinac@gmail.com
My name is Matija, I come from Croatia and I am 40 years old.
I make didactic toys and sculptures from wood and materials from our area, and I design workshops.
I believe that every child should be given the opportunity to play, create, explore and learn with natural elements, and that in a pleasant atmosphere of research, a solution is reached or not.
After graduating and passing the teacher's professional exam i decided to turn my interest and experience in understanding children and the acquired skills of love for wood into the so-called project First of all - the enigmatic tree.
This shorter program consists of workshops and an exhibition for preschoolers and lower grades.
I visited various cities and collaborated with experts who like my idea and enthusiasm, all with the aim of sustainability, revitalization of the ecosystem and education for a better society.
After the birth of my first daughter in 2017, my activity was recognized by the art profession (HUIU). I became a fine artist and began to approach cultural and art competitions more seriously. My biggest success is that I am a permanent external collaborator of the Ministry of Culture on the project - (Backpack full of culture)
After a dozen exhibitions and about hundred workshops all over Croatia, I can say that I really do what I love and along the way I am raising two little girls with my wife.
My wish is to open an association and studio in the near future. Design sustainable programs for children in cooperation with local and national activists. In this way, creative and professional people would carry out pedagogical activities through various crafts and arts.
The target group is all children aged 3-13. Thus, children of various psychophysical abilities, including blind and deaf people with sensory needs, can attend the program.
I believe in the quality of this project and I think that with certain funds it could come to life and become a center of knowledge - tradition, culture and art.
education
kids (under 13 years)
sustainability
natural resources values
recycling natural (wooden)elements
I am very glad that sustainability is extremely emphasized but also simple in the activities I carry out with the children and other participants in the process.
Starting with myself and then through the children all the way to the community, I see that we are thinking more about recycling, reducing the accumulation of waste, reducing the use of plastic and slowly transforming our awareness from year to year. Likewise, I prefer the learning space outdoors, in nature, so that children can freely create their own game or current idea. Namely, this specific activity includes workshops for the transmission of skills and knowledge, as well as the production of didactic wooden toys, useful objects and sculptures. The basic raw material for this activity is 99% of the basic resources that nature offers us, namely wood. (Almost) completely ecologically sustainable pedagogy.
So we reuse discarded items and learn about recycling and reuse along the way.
Finally, we end with the most beautiful action, which is coating with linseed oil. (cold pressed)
I believe in the sustainability of this project in all fields, especially in trades and associations that encourage the production of products from natural materials and teaching about forgotten skills that many generations have learned. This is how we support the local and then other participants in this process and support the circular, sustainable sphere of knowledge that our ancestors built over the years.
The key goal in the direction of my business sustainability would be possible, with the previous plan and program of activities
through the entire year. (which is already almost elaborated), and related to the woodworking curriculum, which through technical culture and similar activities can cover a rich art object that I created.
Thus, he would be a guest in various schools and kindergartens on prearranged topics.
My ultimate wish would be to finally be able to transform an existing facility that children would com
When we talk about the wooden didactic toys I make and the workshops I design, we also touch on certain aesthetics and values for children and the community that surrounds me.
Everything is made by hand and every toy and sculpture is different and has a playful, aesthetic but also social power. Many people look at my enthusiasm with astonishment and who knows what they think when they see their children sawing with me, sanding, sanding with glue, painting with linseed oil, peeling wood with their nails, playing an instrument they made, redesigning an existing wooden object...
Such aesthetics, on which forest pedagogy rests, do not need to be particularly emphasized, and I think that with certain small changes, one day my interactive park for children would look like that.
Of course, the beginning is not easy, and considering that I am mobile, I think that over the years, the space can be transformed in several locations and turned into a new way of education with innovative approaches, motivationally adapted to age groups, but also to the child's profile if it is about difficulties. For me, these are high-quality aesthetics in which people from the surrounding towns cooperate and have some benefits from it: teachers, educators, parents, visitors, but also tourist agencies, family farming, restaurants, associations and the civil sector, all the way to institutions that deal with children. .
I think that through my previous collaborations with individuals and institutions, I have well outlined the path I want to follow and created a business model that can be long-term. Suppose that my key goal is to have a year-round program of workshops and exhibitions in which children of various psychophysical profiles are involved. In that period, collectives of various schools and kindergartens, principals, and pedagogues were constantly involved.
At the same time, the immediate participants would be the parents of the children involved, either out of interest or just getting to know each other when the child arrives or leaves. Partnership between parents and staff is very important when working with children. Although the end users are children, adults are the target group, they are the ones who find the means and time for cooperation. Depending on whether it is a local or regional event, socially disadvantaged children or children with developmental disabilities are often involved. We look forward to such a day and end it with joy because we know that we have spent part of our time with great and admirable qualities.
First of all, this initiative affects children and parents, who are direct participants but also active citizens of the place where the initiative is implemented.
My idea is to directly collaborate with local citizens through the transformation of space in order to use common knowledge and experience to create new models in the field of education as well as spending time in nature. My desire is to connect nature (exterior) and new teaching models to continue where I left off before these difficult times of covid..
Places for alternative teaching methods could perhaps be found in other countries, but not exactly in Croatia, a beautiful democratic country with a bad ruling policy.
Therefore, my advantage is in mobility where I can adapt to the place at any time and offer an innovative idea of my scenographic, author's program.
In my previous work, I have organized workshops for over 10,000 children from various cities and rural areas in Croatia. All of this was organized by experts in culture and education in cooperation with me and the employees of the institutions in order to enrich the children's free time at least a little and complete a specific event, guest appearance or project with higher quality content. Since I have been working professionally through a contract, many people have been involved in the design and implementation of certain pedagogical units. As we cooperated year after year, I have certain links with certain initiatives and an already well-established permanent involvement in the spirit of new projects that round off various cycles and units in these innovative teaching processes. Last year I was part of the project of the Ministry of Education for children affected by the earthquake and covid. That's how we held workshops for a few thousand children in Topusko and witnessed that true spark in the eyes of a small child. From circus artists, cartoonists, museum pedagogues, all the way to theater and visual and interdisciplinary art programs (this includes me), all the way to music and dance skills. After I found out that the earthquake destroyed their elementary school and music school, I respected their modest and determined requests during the workshops much more seriously and devotedly. Here the children sensitized me so much and I realized that in this case they are really designing the implementation of the initiative because at this moment they need relaxation and children's creativity when working, playing and an undisturbed and sincere, children's ideology of existence. I realized that I want to continue to contribute to the quality of existing secondary education programs through my efforts and content creation. In the future, they could become important guidelines in the direction of sustainability and new models of teaching new generations
I wish to open an artistic organization or association / civil society. That way, it would be easier for me to carry out my current activity, which I am now dealing with through copyright contracts. The most important thing is that I would finally pay myself a salary, which I earned after ten years of continuous work and struggle as a freelancer and independent fine artist, all for a small fee. In all of this, my mobility is a big advantage, where at any moment I can pack everything into a slightly bigger car and transport it to any of the surrounding countries. Now that Schengen has been declared, it will be much easier to implement.
So far, I'm happy with the fact that with a little effort, my workshops could live in several places at the same time. Namely, all the activities included in the workshops could be classified into one pedagogy.
Until now, pedagogical workers and other employees of various institutions have been very happy to replicate and transfer these and similar skills and replicate them in their curricula. Examples are kindergartens and schools, but also homes with children with disabilities and other institutions where, with a little effort, corridors, empty classrooms or some external object could be repurposed, i.e. transformed into a space that could be used for various workshops.
Here, children would really take advantage of the creative impulse that they would enjoy once or twice a week in the form of a lesson. I am currently working out the themes of the lessons and they would be for various ages. Here, children would learn to make interesting handicrafts throughout the year and along the way they would absorb knowledge about woodworking and other skills that are very interesting if we know the context in which to present them.
Innovative character is present in various disciplines of this process... From the very approach to pedagogy, which is based on unformed elements from nature.
The children work with wood all the time in the workshop and learn skills along the way: peeling bark from raw willow branches with their fingernails, sawing, sanding and processing dry elements of wood and other natural materials that I have prepared for them. I must admit that the children are totally dedicated to their work, and all in the game. Each child would make a pendant or a small sculpture, a necklace, a pendulum for a parrot..
I have various topics, which is new in my work. So every week I would work on a different main theme such as: Birdhouse, toy robot, mobile/hanger, make an instrument, vehicle, pusher, excavator, make a chair, hanger, criss-cross, memo, fishing rods, dice for man don't get angry , repair the wooden handle of a tool, etc. It is interesting and innovative when children coat toys and newly shaped elements that they have processed with linseed oil and enjoy the aesthetics that each type of wood offers.
This is how special patterns and colors, textures and surface softness and shine come to the fore and give us the final contact with nature, which shows itself to us in its most beautiful form. We give added value and innovative character to the reused object, let's wake up the purpose of recycling in general.
In the research part, the most fun innovative toy is a set of connecting elements.
Like Lego blocks, a hundred types of wood and natural materials are adapted to join and build on each other.
Sculptures, vehicles, and other series of created pulleys systems connected from a dozen parts, instruments with which each sound of knocking on wood has a different tone .
I think that such teaching is very important and necessary and i believe in this wonderful knowledge about utilization free natural resources in the form of thes and similar activities.
I wish to open an artistic organization or association / civil society. That way, it would be easier for me to carry out my current activity, which I am now dealing with through copyright contracts. The most important thing is that I would finally pay myself a salary, which I earned after ten years of continuous work and struggle as a freelancer and independent fine artist, all for a small fee. In all of this, my mobility is a big advantage, where at any moment I can pack everything into a slightly bigger car and transport it to any of the surrounding cities and countries. Now that Schengen has been declared, it will be much easier to implement. So far, I'm happy with the fact that with a little effort, my workshops could live in several places at the same time. Namely, all the activities included in the workshops could be classified into one pedagogy. Until now, pedagogical workers and other employees of various institutions have been very happy to replicate and transfer these and similar skills and replicate them in their curricula. Examples are kindergartens and schools, but also homes with children with disabilities and other institutions where, with a little effort, corridors, empty classrooms or some external object could be repurposed, i.e. transformed into a space that could be used for various workshops. Here, children would really take advantage of the creative impulse that they would enjoy once or twice a week in the form of a lesson. I am currently working out the themes of the lessons and they would be for various ages. Here, children would learn to make interesting handicrafts throughout the year and along the way they would absorb knowledge about woodworking and other skills that are very interesting if we know the context in which to present them.
Enigmatic wood is an interactive and ecologically sustainable project in which toys are made from wood and other natural materials found in the environment using pedagogical methods. The workshops within the program are intended for children of preschool and elementary school age, who will develop their creative impulse through exploratory games, stories and thinking, and learn to handle tools through the processing of elements from nature. From colorful and unusual trees, decorative gourds, acorns or exotic wood such as pistachios, which has a green color in them, to fragrant olives or black ebony oak, over two thousand years old. In addition to local woods such as willow, oak, and beech, which local craftsmen give me cheaply for workshops, here children can process or just get to know the look, smell, and feel of exotic woods such as olive, pistachio, chestnut, mulberry, and the beautiful roots of poplar, up to and including black oak. ebony or hard granadillo wood, from which the clarinet is made. The beauties that I have collected for years to show the children just a part of nature in the wide range of existence. It is interesting that the children here, using tools and sorting through the hundreds of trees that I brought them, always make something small, such as a pendant, a necklace or simply a sculpture. With a little intervention, enigmatic natural forms are transformed into functional toys. cranes, scales, rattles, didactic cars and various sets, the parts of which are connected to each other, and in this way the possibilities of play are upgraded at any time. Here, through play, children develop ecological sensitivity in a practical way and learn about physics, logic and mathematics, and of course also about the very aesthetics of primeval wood as a natural resource. The third part of the workshop consists of a small exhibition of sculptures and rare and specific natural objects. Here we round off today's experience and exchange a few last sentences
One of the most important global challenges touched by this initiative is related to ecological sensitivity and daily exposure to non-essential, mostly plastic, things that litter the planet. I'm talking here mostly about children's toys and the knowledge that even if we buy this kind of thing of questionable origin and quality just once, we are encouraging the further production of such items. Daily advertising through media such as television and commercials has the greatest effect on our behavior. We become dependent on non-essential, mostly toxic, substances and risk our health if we do not enjoy the hedonistic standards of the present.
Thus, over time, we become a slave in consumerism, a capitalist regime that we can resist by following our own intuition. Courage is very important in making decisions, and fear disappears and turns into knowledge and experience that our generations have nurtured. Resisting global challenges requires patience, learning and reflection. The ability to adapt and believe in a better tomorrow. The second most important aspect of the global challenge refers to alternative innovative processes in education that exist and will be created in a new stimulating environment in future projects. Here I'm talking about honing skills and handling various tools and implements that are essential for us to survive in conditions without modern resources like electricity or modern equipment. It is important to return to the roots and reconnect with nature so that over time more people will love their planet and the resources it offers and accept this knowledge and share it with others. I am glad to be a part of this process and I hope that this direct way of teaching about visual culture and art, and in the sphere of woodworking, will take root in many institutions. It would become part of teaching activities such as a foreign language, or an art-technical short program. The most global challenge would be the continuation of my profession and the
*I am sending in attachments: PDF Biography
PDF First - enigmatic tree - description of pedagogical activities/workshops
I would like to work out my development plan in detail. To begin with, I would certainly legalize activities in the form of an association or an artistic organization. For now, I'd be happy with a one- or two-year plan. It would consist of arranging and realizing workshops on various topics and guest appearances in various institutions, at festivals or events/tribunes on certain environmental topics, etc.
Of course, in that case, I would engage responsible people in creating a kind of curriculum.
Such and similar innovative processes always find good people ready to cooperate, so I already have ideas about colleagues related to marketing and locations where I would hold these specific activities.
I think it is very important and urgent to act in the form of new knowledge, disciplines and skills in finding ways to teach today's generations. The concentration of today's children that is focused only on concrete goals in the direction of "getting what I want" could cause us problems in the motivation of future generations in the direction of solving certain tasks. Waiting for material is one of the basic social problems because when the information is on the plate, the solution follows soon after.
It is usually a consumptive and hasty solution to satisfy basic human needs and urges.
But a little later we realize that sometimes the only goal is actually listening to the inner voice and enjoying the nature that offers us inexhaustible resources. A wealth of flavors and aromas. Shapes and surface textures. Basic elements. Water, fire, air, earth and WOOD as a sustainable element in the aesthetics of survival called life.
