“How was your day?” collects scenes from kindergarten life of children. With this project I show parents what their kids do when they aren’t around. I tried to create imaginary space for parents to observe kids and their daily life in an unmonitorred space the kindergarten is.
On the first day of kindergarten my parents were in panic. All this fear and care they meant with “good luck!” I couldn’t see then. Parents do know what breaking feels like and they don’t want their kids to experience it.
Many parents get anxious sending their kids to kindergarten.Transition from being needed in every moment of your kids life to finding yourself alone in a quiet house, can be very difficult. Also, there is this fear of your child not being able to deal with life, alone.
What if they will not be able to make any friends? What if they spend whole day sitting in the corner, after you leave them there? What if teachers don’t know how to care for them? What if other kids make fun of them? What if they become outsiders? what if something or someone will break their heart so hard, they will not be able to recover? What if you missed something really important when you where preparing your kid for an outside world?
Many parents will do anything to avoid any kind of bad experience for their kids. Yes, theoretically parents do know that there are things kids have to learn themselves, away from home, that it’s all part of growing up, that their kids are capable of everything, but what you know and what you feel can be different. Things don’t always make logical sense.
Parents can’t always be there to help their kids to adjust in person. With this series I wanted to create a way for them to be able to attend.
About the author:
Mano Svanidze was born in 1992 in Tbilisi, Georgia. She graduated from Tbilisi State University, faculty of Economics and Business with a BA in Marketing. She also studied composition and music for 10 years. Mano is a member and co-founder of 90’x collective. Her work has been exhibited in several countries such as Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, UK, Norway, Sweden, Germany and Italy. Currently she works as a freelance photojournalist at media platform Chai Khana.
