iSTART — The Answer at Twelve Lies in New Question Seeds
The 12th iSTART Children’s Art Festival will open on May 30, 2026, at the A4X Art Center, Luxelakes Art Expo Center. Now in its twelfth year, iSTART has entered its first “cycle of life”: evolving from a project in which children participated in curating, into a year-round incubation platform shaped by children’s in-depth participation and co-creation throughout the entire process. This year’s theme, “Seeds·Archipelago·Wanderings”, grows out of countless “question seeds” raised by children—questions that have yet to be discovered, heard, or responded to. Through drifting, discussion, and co-creation, these questions gradually take root and grow into a series of interconnected islands.
The exhibition “Seeds·Archipelago·Wanderings” is driven by the iSTART co-creation team. Focusing on education, public welfare, design, animation, reading, family games, and local culture, it presents a series of interdisciplinary co-creative projects that genuinely respond to children’s questions. The islands grown from these “question seeds” take on diverse forms through different lines of inquiry and exploration: Xuexiao Island, co-created by children from cities and villages, imagines “what if there were a place in the world with no homework?”; Bulu Island grows from family stories that protect and nurture children’s imagination; Fun Island invites families to see one another again and play together; Yuga Island follows children’s exploration around an “alien sacred tree”; Cat’s Adventure Island uses animation to save stray cats; Buzhi Island opens up infinite ways of entering children’s reading worlds; the Forest of Curious Questions discovers the natural and cultural forces of villages and cities; the Travelers’ Corridor unfolds mysterious urban adventures; Echo Island releases and responds to children’s inner voices; and Nothing-Lost Town reflects on loss and gain. As these islands connect with one another, they form an archipelago of individual imagination, family relationships, natural exploration, future learning, and local wisdom. This archipelago is not fixed in one time or place. It continues to grow across families, schools, communities, nature, and the children’s museum, enabling genuine dialogue and co-creation through discussions and collaborations around different themes.
This year’s iSTART offers participants different levels of engagement: audiences may move from one site to another, experience workshops and courses, join learning communities, take part in initiating and shaping issues or projects, and grow from participants into creators, from speakers into those who give to others, and from connectors into co-builders. In addition to iSTART’s signature gamified exhibition experience, this year’s site will be transformed into a “4D picture book”. Hundreds of projects will be woven into one continuous story, allowing audiences to “land” on one island after another in an immersive exhibition space through multiple forms of reading, encounters with artworks, interactive creation, and game-based exploration. During the 90-day exhibition period, iSTART will collaborate with professional partners and children’s communities across different fields to present four themed carnivals: the “Upside down Theatre Carnival”, the “Sparking Maker Carnival”, the “Moonbud Animation Carnival”, and the “Reading Carnival”. These carnivals will bring together diverse experiences and forms of creation, continuously renewing the ways visitors explore and experience the exhibition site. At the end of the exhibition period, the iSTART Education Forum will also be held, offering participants a broad platform for exchange, learning, and co-creation.
We look forward to welcoming more friends to wander through and join our “Seeds Archipelago”. Here, we do not rely on vague consensus. Instead, we believe that children are specific, whole, unique, and creative individuals. Through action, we respond to children’s sincere questions, as well as to their courage and wisdom to make change.
— Li Jie
