A Historical View of Childhood in Colombia

Until March of 2013, the Casa Republicana of the Biblioteca Luis Ángel Arango presents the singular exhibition entitled The Children We Were: Traces of Childhood in Colombia. This exhibition is a survey of the history of childhood in Colombia that follows the traces of this particular theme through a gaze approached from the arts.

A selection of approximately 524 pieces from museums and libraries across Colombia—including press announcements, paintings, sculptures, drawings, engravings, photographs, postcards, toys, illustrated magazines and school paraphernalia—allows us to witness a conceptual transformation of childhood, that until the Nineteenth Century had been seen as a world of miniature adults, into a universe now regarded as a very definitive stage in the life of people; one that deserves stimulation and protection because of its fragility and importance. The exhibition also reveals the ways in which this evolution unfolds and the direction it takes through science and the social and government institutions.

The term "infancy" (another word for childhood) comes from the Latin infans: unable to speak. Today, this period is classified as the life of a human being from birth to puberty. The exhibition rescues pre-Columbian material, covers the period of the Colony and the Nineteenth Century, and all the way up to the middle of the Twentieth Century. It is divided into three thematic centers: Pre-Columbian Symbols of Motherhood and Childhood; Representations, Vicissitudes, Modernization of Childhood; Studding, Playing, Working; Childhood as commerce; and Creations for Childhood.

With this exhibition, the Subgerencia Cultural of the Banco de la República has concurrently generated educational and ludic activities that offer the possibility of looking at childhood as a way of strengthening the relationship between children and art, literature, history, cultural spaces, and learning. It is also a source of reflection on themes like infanticide, abandonment, war, laws, education, religion, and the manner in which these aspects have marked the development of childhood in Colombia.