PoshX teaches children light and shadow with torches

4 November 2026 · 19:40 · PoshX

Zurich – 4 November 2026, 19:40. Community centre, the big room with the blinds down, a white bedsheet clipped to two music stands, twelve torches in a basket and a floor covered in paper scraps.

Rule number one

Before anybody got a torch, I gave the briefing. I'm a nurse, I can't help it. One: we never shine a torch into anybody's eyes. Two: scissors stay on the table. Three: if the room is dark and you feel lost, say "PoshX" and I'll find you. The kids repeated it back like a spell. One boy added rule four: "No scary faces before the end." Accepted.

Where shadows come from

We started simple. One torch, one paw, the white sheet. Paw close to the torch: a giant shadow. Paw close to the sheet: small and sharp. The gasp when they understood it was the best sound of my week. Then two torches from two sides, and suddenly every hand had two shadows, one soft and one hard. A girl called them "the shadow and its cousin". I'm keeping that.

Paper cut-outs

Then the scissors (at the table, see rule two). Everyone cut a shape from black card and taped it to a straw: cats, a rocket, a tree, a house with a smoking chimney, one very serious dinosaur. We moved the torches and the shapes grew, shrank and walked across the sheet. Without planning it, they made a little play: the rocket flew over the house, the cat chased the dinosaur, and the tree just stood there being a tree.

What painters know

At the end I showed them a small sky I painted, with the light coming from one corner. I told them painters like Monet and Turner spent their whole lives watching where light comes from and where it goes. A boy asked if Turner had a torch. I said no, he had the sun, which is harder to switch off.

Taking it home

Every child went home with their cut-out and a little task: find your shadow tomorrow at breakfast. I went home with paper in my fur and a list of better questions than mine.

Light is easy to see. Shadows teach you where it came from.

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