Michela Dianetti

What is AND?

AND (Art Needs Dialogue) is a public philosophy project that invites children and families to engage with the Baboró International Arts Festival for Children through facilitated philosophical dialogue.

The project includes:

• a year-long programme of pre- and post-festival philosophical sessions for schools, youth centres, and Baboró’s Children’s Panel;
• an engagement Audio Imaginative Guide for schools;
• an intensive workshop programme during Baboró 2026;
• the development of the Thinking Studio, a walk-in interactive philosophical and artistic space.

All activities are grounded in the Community of Philosophical Inquiry (CPI), within the Philosophy for Children pedagogy, supporting participants in exploring meaningful questions, building ideas together, and reflecting on how their thinking and lived experience connects to the world.

Why and?

AND focuses on collective artistic experiences in public spaces as important sites for shared attention.

The starting point is simple: if attention is something we cultivate, then art (and the theatrical experience in particular) can be a powerful site for doing so, however, some conditions need to be created. What children receive through art can often be transformative, and philosophical dialogue can provide the space to ‘work out’ the ideas that stay with them after the curtain falls.

While adults often have structured opportunities to reflect on art (we often see going to the theatre as a social experience, we talk about what we saw with others, we can go online and find reviews, information on the play, and share our thoughts on social online platforms), children rarely have equivalent spaces beyond school settings. AND addresses this gap by creating conditions for philosophical reflection around artistic experience.

The aim is not to ‘understand’ the artwork more, but to use it as a starting point for thinking together: to negotiate, test, and transform the concepts that emerge from encounters with theatre, and to engage with art as a communal and reflective practice.

Influences

AND is shaped by a philosophical understanding of attention, drawing on Simone Weil and Iris Murdoch. It takes attention as a practice that can (and should) be cultivated, especially in educational settings, and understands moral progress as depending on the ‘enriching and deepening’ of the concepts through which we see the world. Art for these philosophers is a privileged space that can offer new, often non-verbal ways of seeing, which philosophy can then help to articulate and work through collectively.

This is why the project draws on the Community of Philosophical Inquiry (CPI): a practice that allows participants to explore imaginatively the concepts they inherit and use every day. These concepts are not fixed, but constantly used, reshaped, and sometimes misused. As Mary Midgley suggests, unnoticed conceptual failures can quietly distort our thinking, and this requires a philosophical readjustment. In the context of AND, CPI creates a space where this work can be done collectively through philosophical dialogue.

At the centre of the project is the Community of Philosophical Inquiry (CPI), as developed within the Philosophy for Children tradition (IAPC), and in particular informed by Lucy Elvis’ approach to dialogical practice.

PRACTICES

AND translates these ideas into various practical formats:

• Pre- and post-performance P4C workshops
  These sessions provide children with a space to reflect together on their experiences through philosophical dialogue.
• Audio Imaginative Guide
  Developed in response to findings from a quality assurance report conducted after the previous festival, the guide addresses children’s need for better preparation; not to reduce surprise, but to support expectations. It will encourage imaginative and philosophical engagement, and connect with the Drama curriculum and oral literacy. Designed as an interactive audio tool, it allows classes to follow different pathways based on collective choices.
• Thinking Studio
  A walk-in philosophical space open throughout the festival, designed for children and families. It operates in three modes: (i) open exploration, with games and prompts for free engagement; (ii) a showcase of the project and the P4C approach, including the outcomes of the year-long engagement and co-creation work with participating groups; and (iii) facilitated sessions, where guided activities lead into CPI discussions.

AND is led by Michela Dianetti in collaboration with Lucy Elvis, and supported by the AIRE Research Collective and the Public Philosophy Team at the University of Galway, the project is funded by Research Ireland – SFI Industry RDI Fellowship (Jan–Dec 2026).

If you want to know more, get in touch at michela@airecollective.org