Childhood, that Mountain is the first project of the Centre photographique Rouen Normandie aimed at young children. This series of workshops led by Marion Dutoit at the La Ribambelle day nursery (Criquetôt-L’Esneval) is part of the Babil program, which promotes artistic and cultural awareness among young children. The project focuses on the first thousand days of an individual’s existence, the first three years of his or her identity. A thousand days is the time of the crèche, a decisive time, an apprenticeship in its own right: a mountain to climb.

The artist followed these young children for two weeks. She attended their sessions of body awareness, animal mediation and games, adding a plastic dimension and an artistic production to each of these activities. During the gymnastics sessions, the children were able to try their hand at bodypainting and, in a second creative phase, were able to shape small clay mountains which were then encapsulated to make snow globes – themselves assembled into mountains.

At the same time, Marion Dutoit was able to create a toddler-sized mountain in the school garden for the children to play on. The artist also produced a short video on the theme of ascent, collecting images day after day of children climbing, scaling and pulling themselves up, ready to climb the mountain that is childhood.

A postcard depicting the children in their gymnastics session and the hamsters in the animal mediation workshop was printed.

Childhood, that Mountain is a series of workshops led by artist Marion Dutoit with children from the La Ribambelle day nursery in Criquetôt-L’Esneval (Seine-Maritime), November 2022. A project run by the Centre photographique Rouen Normandie, co-financed by the Direction régionale des affaires culturelles de Normandie, the Caisse d’Allocations Familiales de Seine-Maritime and the Métropole du Havre as part of the Babil program.