A Vanishing Gallery of Childhood Dreams

The world’s largest collection of children’s drawings, more than 100 000 pieces, faces a sudden future in doubt. The museum that opened in 1986 began as a film project by Rafael Goldin, an immigrant from the Soviet Union. He asked kids worldwide to share how they see the world and began collecting their art. After the film, he gave the growing pile a permanent home in an Oslo villa that became a living gallery. The rooms are walls of bright primary colours, carpeted to invite children to draw whenever they feel inspired. The collection is global and often reflects hardship: wars, illness, loss of parents to AIDS, domestic violence. Students have even created a tinfoil sculpture of the World Trade Center, and a Mozambican child’s drawing shows orphaned kids clinging to their mother. The museum has long relied on state funding—about 5. 25 million Norwegian kroner in 2025, roughly $550, 000. But the Culture Ministry recently denied its request for the next year and urged it to join a new network of state‑supported museums that focus on research and collaboration.The museum has never joined the network, yet it has collaborated with over a dozen institutions, including the Nobel Peace Center and Ekeberg Sculpture Park. The director, Angela Goldin, says she was never warned that the museum would lose funding if it did not join. The Ministry’s decision has drawn criticism from the Norwegian Museums Association, which warned it would mean a “total liquidation” of the collection. The case is complicated by past controversies involving a philanthropist who helped fund the villa, but the Ministry says those issues are unrelated. Goldin has tried to keep the museum alive through private donations and limited open‑hours for young visitors. It is now closed entirely, staff are laid off, and the director uses remaining savings to pay for basic storage costs. She still hopes to find a new source of support, but the outlook looks bleak. If the museum must close for good, none of the works—except those that are irreparably damaged—have ever been discarded. The future of these priceless childhood voices remains uncertain.