From July2012 until March 2013 we are going to work on a realisation for the spanish festival “Mirada de las mujeres” in 2013. It builds upon the first documentation we have realised with interviews of artists that have been born, living and/ or working on the Canarian Island Lanzarote, showing their work, taking time to talk about their ideas and visions.
UTOPIIA is a far more open work of the artist Patrick Germanier and Michael von Erlenbach, realised on the Canarian island El Hierro, the most eastern island and most western point in europe.
The idea is to show nature as the most impresssive performer in creativity and within the work they will examine how creative people work with the possibilities they have on the island.
Even that the festival has been cancelled because of the crisis during the realisation of the work, they will show the results in 2013 within the artaspects society and in different place on the Canarian Islands.
Realities is a videodocumentation about artists who live on the Canary island Lanzarote or come from there.
The question which accompanied me during the preparation was which possibilities have artist on the island today, to help giving shape actively towards the diverse changes for a living society. Which possibilities arise for the social and political forces to incorporate artist in the future creation. Because the island Lanzarote can look back in the 70s and 80s at a positive cooperation between the government and the artist Cesar Manrique, a focus also lay on the question to what extent contemporary artists are allowed today to cooperate initially at an equal position.
here we are talking to the most famous artist in Teguise, known as a weired man, absolutely great!
During our stay on El Hierro in June this year, we met Sabine and Torsten from BIMBACHE Open Art and we were talking about possible cooperations between art aspects, Lapas and Bimbache Open Artas a form of an international network, dealing with art, music and sustainability.
A lot of different people were in the group of dancers, mostly from Portugal but also from all countries involved in the project: Dancer of the company, dancers from the secondary group, people with and without disability (mental or physically disabled), blind dancer, children, all target groups and also people who never danced before have participated, as well as teachers, organisators, coordinator, manager of the different organisations, volunteers and various artists. For a lot of them it was their first time on stage.
Project description
The MA-MA project (Motivation by Art-Art as a Motivation) is a Grundtvig Learning partnership project within the Lifelong Learning program, supported by the european commission.
The MA-MA project is an interdisciplinary artistic project for disabled young adults (18-30 y.) This project is based on creative exchanges between artists and mentally or physically disabled persons. Five organisations of five european countries are participating to this project as a partner. The partners organisations are working in different ways and in different artistic fields (dance, visual art, video, music), and/or are more spezialised in the work with disabled persons.
The main idea of this project is a mutual learning experience: In this partnership we would like to link art and disability, and propose some active exchanges where the disability is in the center of a creative learning process, and where the artistic experience will be open to many artistic forms, in the meaning of an “art without borders”.
We would like to create an innovative exchange of practices, learning to learn from artists as well as from disabled people, giving a mutual motivation and developing an efficient awareness about the creative potentiality in each of us.
Reasons
There is in our societies a huge need of awareness, concerning our vision on disability -and all kind of handicapped or limited people- who are normally underestimate, if not just rejected. There is also a fear of them.
This conception needs to be changed, or to be developed for more objectivity, and for a more integrative way to think and to act with differences. Our society needs skills to learn how to take down the discrimination and the prejudice, and how -on the contrary- to use the weakness into a force, to increase the value of each person in any condition, to give to this person a right place in the society and specially to become aware that each one have to learn from each other.
Disabled people have a very special intuitive way to express themselves in the artistic field, and to consider it. Through their handicap (or even “thanks” to it), they have a different approach of the creativity and the artistic process, and they are able of another understanding of the artistic work and its meaning. An artist is a person who is looking for more understanding of himself and of the world around him, through the artistic experience and its sens. Artists plays therefore an important role in our society, and belongs to it in a quite special way. Art is also a research of the limits, to understand oneself. In this meaning, artists and handicapped people are connected.
The project takes place in this “reciprocal need” of the experience of each other, to give a new impulse in artistic as in social fields, as well as an efficient support and motivation for disabled persons in the society. This innovative approach of the artistic work will be a very stimulated learning experience in Europe, for all the participants, and also beyond the project itself.
Meeting in Estonia, creative clothes and handicraft worshop with learners of the target group of Mental Health Daycare Centre in Võisiku
and developping the key images for the performance.
The key-images are some pictures or some video sequences that will be shown on the stage during our last performance project. Each picture is a part of the project and has been made during the mobilities.
The key-images are a compilation of strong moments from the experiences made during the visits and transnational meetings: They are like the “red twine” all along the project, between the partner’s countries and between the different experiences with art, disabled
people and human stories.
All these images will be collected as “video-on-stage” for the last performance, and they will give the visual structure in the setting up of our last performance project.
The key-images will be also regularly updated on this blog, and can be seen by everyone all along the project.
Making Time is designed for individuals in adult education and the arts to refresh and expand their working processes. The course examines the relationships between art, education and re-localized societies in an age of increasingly scarce energy sources. It attempts to elaborate on the idea that artistic process offers a re-imagining of social situations yet often fails to translate into the vocabulary of everyday visual languages.
Lanzarote’s complex relationship with central Europe – as both participating EU member and peripheral holiday destination, serves to highlight issues now being faced globally: economic downturn and escapism are mapped across the island’s sublime yet haunting landscapes.
Meeting in Poland, dance workshop from the partner of Portugal with learners of the target groups of Caritas
Decisions took in Poland, regarding our end-performance project in 2012
-During our meeting in Poland (dance workshop) we have decided that the main concept of our end performance project will be “LINES”, in connection with the serie of the “key-Images” of each country.
“Lines means also the body, the end, but also the point of connection between all partners´countries.”
-We have also decided to make an exhibition in Madeira with the art works realised in Germany in september, and with some creative works from each partners´ organisations. It will be a part of the end-performance project and will be presented at the same time in Madeira.
Lanzarote, Spain – six participants hailing from across Europe converged on the volcanic island of Lanzarote for an arts course exploring Nature and Tradition in the context of Peak Oil and Sustainability. Including the invaluable art aspects assistants the breadth of nations represented included Romania, Greece, England, Germany, Hungary and Finland. The course, run in English, was designed and facilitated by Alex Robert Head.
Meeting in Lithuanie, workshop about creative music and songs with learners of the target group of Ventos Socialines
Ventos Socialines Globos Namai (Lithuania)
Grazina Baniene
The main goal of Ventos Socialines Globos Namaiis to satisfy biosocial needs for young people with mental disabilities. Our target group is young handicapped people, between 18 and 30 years old. The workers of this organisation are teaching social skills, and giving self-support skills for young mentally disabled people, through different social and artistic activities.
From July2012 until March 2013 we are going to work on a realisation for the spanish festival “Mirada de las mujeres” in 2013. It builds upon the first documentation we have realised with interviews of artists that have been born, living and/ or working on the Canarian Island Lanzarote, showing their work, taking time to talk about their ideas and visions.
