Catalogue of the Children’s Drawing Contest and Exhibition “Life in the Past — The Past through Children’s Eyes” Published
- Eszter Melis
- Sep 29
- 2 min read
Alongside the conference, a children’s drawing contest entitled Life in the Past – Past Through Children’s Eyes was announced as part of the programme for children aged 4 to 15, including pre-school, as well as lower and upper primary school pupils. By the deadline of 12 May 2025, an astonishing 240 entries had been received from seventy kindergartens and schools within and beyond Hungary’s borders. The works, created with a variety of techniques, explored themes such as: How do children imagine the past? Where and how did children and families once live? What might people have worn hundreds or thousands of years ago? What did they eat in prehistory, antiquity, or the Middle Ages? The sheer range of striking and captivating images prompted the rapid organisation of a children’s art exhibition. The opening ceremony and award presentation took place on 4 June 2025 on the first-floor gallery of the ELTE RCH.
The professional jury of the children’s drawing competition comprised art historian Katalin Aknai, art teacher Erna Juhász, archaeologist Gabriella Kulcsár, designer, architect, and graphic artist Nóra Mészáros, and archaeologist-historian Orsolya Mészáros. First to third prizes and several special prizes were awarded in all three age categories; in addition, several research institutes, research groups, and professional organisations offered special prizes. The list of winners can be found on pages 12–14 of this volume.
The exhibition was designed by Zsóka Varga and realized by Balázs Gusztáv Mende, Nóra Mészáros, and Zsóka Varga. It was open to the public for nearly four months, closing on 26 September 2025, during the Researchers’ Night, within the framework of the LÁTKÉP 2025 programme series, with a closing event, The Future of Child Space, dedicated to the memory of Professor Andrea Kárpáti, who had still shared her thoughts with us at the round-table in June.
With the present volume, our aim has been to preserve the variety and creative vision expressed in the children’s drawings. The works of the three age groups have been arranged in six chapters – Life in Prehistory, Life in Antiquity, Life in the Migration Period and the Middle Ages, Life in the Early Modern Period and the Nineteenth century, Folk Traditions, and Life in the Twentieth century and Beyond – that guide the reader through archaeological and historical eras.
The included drawings and paintings vividly convey the worlds of past and present, offering a glimpse into the future that can only be understood through the lens of childhood. We are grateful to all participants of the competition: pre-schoolers and primary school students, as well as their parents and teachers. We hope that, following the exhibition, this volume may serve as a lasting collection of works of visual art that allows us to gain deeper understanding of our contemporary world.
The full book is also available on the website of the ELTE RCH Institute of Archaeology:
The flipbook version can be found here:
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