PLUM—SKUM: The Making of a Handwashing Video for the Youngest Children After the Outbreak of Covid-19

This chapter demonstrates how information regarding infection control was recrafted on the principles of critique and attraction to art and imagination in a digital agile response in a time of crisis. The chapter narrates the process of making a video targeting the youngest children by using cultural-historical and aesthetic analytic models and concepts where co-creation, creativity and imagination are crucial. The design was explorative and collaborative, as the process involved ongoing dialogue between the researcher, the artist, a family with children aged two and four years, kindergarten teachers, and children in three groups (1–3-year-olds). Inspired by a cultural-historical methodology of collaborative exploration, we name the event as pedagogical innovationInnovation. We start off with a problem experienced in the early days of the pandemic: informing children about the importance of washing one’s hands. The information provided by the health and educational authorities was almost exclusively shaped in a manner best suited to ages four and up. The authors identified a lack of developmental and institutional knowledge and awareness regarding successful communication with children in the tool kit provided by the authorities. Although older children might follow the commands of adults regarding infection control, younger children lack the logical tools to process such information. On the basis of this critique, we responded by engaging children, kindergartens, and families in the co-creation of a 90-second video. This animated short video used imaginative language rather than the more common instruction, with the aim of targeting the youngest children. The result of the creative co-creation was a colourful, abstract cartoon language with stimulating rhythms.