Beauty Bubbles, Subtle Meetings, and Frames for Play: Aesthetic Processes in Danish Kindergartens

This article contributes to the knowledge about artist-teacher collaboration by focusing on aesthetic processes in a partnership between pedagogues and artists in two Danish kindergartens over a period of 18 months. The research is within the framework of action research and links to the development project, "European Children of Culture," which involved several European/Baltic/Nordic countries in 2015-2017. The article rests on empirical material (interviews, photos, video recordings and field notes from actions and reflections) and investigates how the involved adults understand, facilitate and frame aesthetic processes and how this leads the researcher to expand perspectives on aesthetics in early childhood services. The aim of the article is to rethink aesthetic processes -- to explore the many layers of aesthetics, not to reduce them. Hence, aesthetic processes in kindergartens become profound aesthetic-sensitive experiences involving hands-on processes with intensified meaning, subtle meetings and intermediate worlds, and ultimately termed "beauty bubbles".