ART DETECTIVES
A five-week course where curious kids investigate art history and create art
Five mysteries. Five creative investigations. A group of young detectives learning to notice what most people miss.
5 weekly sessions · 90 minutes · 7-11 years
Taught in English · All materials included
No experience needed · No payment required
· Early bird price for priority list members
September - October 2026 · Luxembourg City
ART KID PRESENTS
ART DETECTIVES
A five-week course where curious 7–11-year-olds investigate art history and create art of their own
Five mysteries. Five creative investigations. One small group learning to notice what most people miss.
September–October 2026 · Luxembourg City · English · 6–8 children
THE IDEA
What is Art Detectives?
Every week opens with a question that has no obvious answer.
Children look closely, search for evidence and build their own interpretations. Short, age-appropriate stories from art history help them test their ideas before they respond through practical art-making.
Art Detectives explore art by looking, questioning, experimenting and making.
Why are angry rabbits hiding in medieval manuscripts?
Why do horror movies use lighting techniques mastered by Baroque painters?
Why can a toilet enter a museum and become art?
How each investigation works
INVESTIGATE
DISCUSS
CREATE
Children study one or several artworks closely, noticing what looks odd, what’s hidden and what catches the eye first.
They compare interpretations, listen to different viewpoints and decide whether new clues change their thinking. Art-historical context is woven naturally into the conversation.
Each investigation ends with a piece the child designs themselves using paint, pastel, clay or whatever material that week calls for.
look closely → ask questions → build an interpretation → test an idea → explain a choice
THE Case file
THE IDEA
Every case
leaves a trace
Each child builds a personal Art Detective Case File containing visual clues, questions, sketches, experiments and discoveries from all five investigations.
At the end of the course, the complete file goes home as a record of what the child created and how their thinking developed.
THE PROGRAMME
Five cases to solve
CASE 01
Why are angry rabbits hiding in medieval books?
Children explore the strange creatures, battles and jokes hidden in the margins of medieval manuscripts.
Creative practice: inventing their own marginal creature or scene using line, pattern and visual storytelling.
CASE 02
Could a painting fool you into walking into a wall?
Children investigate how Renaissance artists used perspective to create convincing illusions of space.
Creative practice: using basic linear perspective, scale and overlapping to create the illusion of depth.
CASE 03
Why do horror films and 400-year-old paintings use the same tricks?
Children discover how Baroque artists used light and shadow to create drama and emotion.
Creative practice: using light, shadow and composition to guide attention and create a particular mood.
CASE 04
What happened when artists stopped showing the world as it looks?
Children explore major shifts in modern painting, from Cubism to abstraction.
Creative practice: experimenting with distortion, multiple viewpoints and abstraction to show a subject in a new way.
CASE 05
Why does a toilet count as art in a museum, but not in your bathroom?
Artists have transformed toilets, bananas and boxes into artworks that question what art can be.
Creative practice: transforming an ordinary object or idea by changing its context, meaning or presentation.
COURSE OUTCOMES
What your child will learn
By the end of the five weeks, children will have practised how to:
01
Investigate artwork like a historian
Learn to use a specific set of investigative questions to decode what they are seeing.
02
Build independent interpretations
Search for evidence and form their own logical conclusions rather than waiting for the right answer.
03
Engage in critical discussion
Practise listening to different viewpoints and deciding when to revise their own thinking based on new clues.
04
Make purposeful creative choices
Apply art-historical techniques to their own artist practice, making deliberate decisions about light, space and form.
05
Navigate complex concepts
Begin to discuss abstract ideas like value, context and the evolution of artistic beauty.
06
Communicate through art and word
Learn to explain their creative process and the thinking behind their final Art Detective Case File results.
Children will also leave with a broader understanding of how ideas about art, beauty and value have changed throughout history.
Ready to join the first Art Detectives group?
PRIORITY REGISTRATION
Help us choose the final schedule and receive priority access to registration before places open publicly.
Priority-list price: €325
Public registration: €400
No payment required. Joining the list does not commit you to registering.
Places are limited, and joining the list does not guarantee registration.
The course is planned for September–October 2026 in Luxembourg City. Final dates will be based on families’ availability.
PRACTICAL INFORMATION
Art Detectives · Autumn 2026
€325
Priority-list price:
Standard registration price: €400
Included: All materials and the Art Detective Case File
The final course schedule will be selected based on families’ availability. If there is enough demand, more than one group may open.
Interested in a group in another language? Let us know on the form, and we’ll factor it into future groups.
Age:
7–11 years
Format:
Five weekly sessions
Session length:
90 minutes
Group size:
6–8 children
Location:
Luxembourg City
Exact address to be confirmed
Language:
English*
Dates:
Between 20 September and 22 October 2026
Exact weekday to be confirmed
*Children should be able to follow a simple group conversation in English. Brief clarification in French or Russian is available when needed.
ABOUT THE EDUCATOR
Hi, I’m Maria Fokina
I’m the founder of Art Kid, an artist and arts educator, and I never grew out of asking too many questions.
I’m currently completing an M.Ed in Arts Education Practice at Dublin City University, focusing on inquiry-led, child-centred learning through the arts.
I also hold a BA in Journalism from Lomonosov Moscow State University, with an academic focus on arts and cultural journalism. That training taught me to research carefully, ask sharper questions and turn complex cultural ideas into engaging stories — skills that now shape Art Detectives.
I have worked with children in educational and creative settings for nearly nine years. Since founding Art Kid in 2024, I have been developing and leading arts programmes for children and families in Luxembourg.
I am convinced that children learn most deeply when they are invited to observe, question, test ideas, make choices and revise their thinking rather than reproduce one “correct” answer.