Review: 'Teacher in The House: A True Tale of Urban Survival'
By Lucía Camargo Rojas
“Teacher in The House: A True Tale of Human Survival” is a funny, emotive and biographical one-woman play that explains actress Susan Jeremy’s decision to teach children with life-threatening illness at their homes. The show, presented at Theatre 99, is part of the Piccolo Fringe series.
Successfully performing 10 different characters, Jeremy tells four interweaving stories: her childhood memories when she was a student, her experience as a public school teacher, her own cancer treatment and her role as an educator.
Without any effort or intermission she performed distinctly different characters, such as a policeman and a kid with attention deficit disorder. Her acting was so compelling that only with the tone of her voice, a movement, an attitude, it was clear when she changed from one character to another, and when she shifted to a new scene.
Most importantly, she was able to describe regular life and the peculiarities of each character and each environment, prompting laughter throughout the performance. Two of her funniest descriptions were about the Hispanic neighborhood in New York City, where people are so warm everyone is half-naked, and about how she won the respect of her 7th grade students when she taught them about drugs, including illegal ones.
Those funny moments, though, were a kind of an introduction to the most difficult part of the performance, when she shares her experience with cancer and chemotherapy. Up to this moment the pace of the storytelling was quick and the mood festive. But once her character is coping with illness, the performance became more reflective.
Jeremy clearly took a risk in this show: She wanted to discuss her breast cancer fight with humor. Remarkably, she achieved that goal and simultaneously paid tribute to the teacher helping others face similar battles.
Between jokes, she signaled the importance of helping children struggling with illness, avoiding sentimentality and pity. She rightly chose the perfect way to convey her message: with laughter, lots of laughter.
Published in The Post and Courier on June 7, 2013
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Q&A with Nathan Durfee
By Lucía Camargo Rojas
The original canvas of this year’s Piccolo Spoleto poster is being exhibited in “Tales Transposed: A Celebration of Imagination”. It is called “Bartholomeux Taken by the Piccolo” and was made by the artist Nathan Durfee.
Durfee agreed to talk to The Post and Courier about the meaning of this image.
Q: How did you end up doing this year’s Piccolo Spoleto poster?
A: Rebecca Gosnell, who is affiliated with the Office of Cultural Affairs, was a big fan of my work and approached Ellen (Dressler Moryl). Rebecca dropped my work (off with) them, and they thought it could be a good match for the festival. They told me: “Hey, we love this Bartholomeux character, and we want to incorporate it into this year’s Piccolo poster.”
Q: When did you start drawing Bartholomeux?
A: I came up with the dog Bartholomeux about two years ago. What is interesting about him is that he has this affiliation with the cardinal birds, and I have done a whole series of cardinals, where each cardinal has its own personality.
Q: What is the idea behind “Bartholomeux Taken by the Piccolo”?
A: I thought it would be interesting to have Bartholomeux embodying the festival where the cardinals represent all the individual performers. If you look at the poster, you will see that one cardinal is an opera singer, another one is a musical conductor, another a guitar player and so on.
Q: What is the role of Bartholomeux in the poster?
A: He is like a leader of the other artists, which is like what all festivals are about. If you bring all of these different performers and artists together, it is more than just the individual parts.
Published in The Post and Courier on June 4, 2013
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By Lucía Camargo Rojas
The infinite possibilities for telling stories through sculpture, painting and collage are evident throughout the Piccolo Spoleto arts exhibition “Tales Transposed: A Celebration of Imagination.” But Nathan Durfee’s work catches more than its share of attention, demonstrating why he deserves the entire first floor of the City Gallery at Waterfront Park.
Durfee is a magician of contrasts. Complementary colors as well as characters harmonize in his work as if they were made for one another. The 24 bright canvases clearly show his desire to depict an understanding between characters from different worlds.
The main character in this series, the dog Bartholomeux, plays the flute or a record player in order to speak the language of the cardinal birds. In the outstanding canvas “Bartholomeux Swallowed in the Red,” the dog is delightfully surrounded by several birds to the point where the two species seem to become one.
Durfee’s strongest tool is his ability to use his background as an illustrator to paint colorful canvases that tell a story. Seeing several of his paintings becomes a reading experience that makes you want to organize Bartholomeux’s transformation chronologically. Durfee’s imagination captivates from beginning to end. Comparing his first pencil drafts with his finished works gives a sense of how this remarkable artist develops his ideas.
The exploration of stories continues on the second floor of the exhibition, with the collages of Lillian Trettin and the sculptures of Judy Mooney.
Trettin’s work is risky. She carefully cuts handmade, hand-painted and commercial papers, then reassembles the pieces to create satirical and colorful scenes based on Flannery O’Connor novels. Some of her pieces are extremely powerful, like “Jesus Was the Jagged Shape in the Back of His Mind” (2012), inspired by O’Connor’s “Wise Blood,” while others lack some energy.
Mooney’s pieces depict the stories of Gullah-Geechee people through rustic clay sculptures that respectfully evoke an ancestral knowledge. The artist’s research into Gullah traditions is evident in the compelling architectural pieces that seem to keep a secret that one would like to find.
Published in The Post and Courier on June 4, 2013
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Haga click en la imagen para ver el video
Por Nick DeSantis y Lucía Camargo Rojas
Rubén Olmo, director artístico del Ballet Flamenco de Andalucía, explica el significado de su obra "Noche Andaluza" que se presentó en el Festival Spoleto 2013. /Rubén Olmo, Ballet Flamenco de Andalucía artistic director, explains the meaning of the show "Noche Andaluza" performed in Spoleto Festival USA 2013.
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Image by Vinny Y. Huang/ Special to The Post and Courier
By Lucía Camargo Rojas
In the first of two Brent Ashley paintings at Circular Congregational Church, the artist is depicted as an abstract figure trying to balance seven red stars. The second, more realistic piece features bigger stars that are delicately placed to harmonize with Ashley’s more energetic body.
“In the first one, I’m confused and tired,” he said of the two works. “In the second one, I’m part of my present rather than disconnected from it.”
They represent two very distinct periods in Ashley’s life: before and after he began to be treated for Bipolar II disorder. They are among the 92 paintings shown in the “The Art of Recovery” exhibition, part of the Piccolo Spoleto Festival.
The exhibition, which was organized by the South Carolina Department of Mental Health, features artwork by people living with mental illness who use painting as a therapeutic tool, often because they were already interested in art.
The Department of Mental Health treats 100,000 patients a year in its 17 state centers, some of which have multiple clinics. Three centers — Greenville Mental Health Center, Coastal Empire Community Mental Health Center and Aiken Barnwell Community Mental Health Center — offer art classes.
Brian Marks was a mental health patient in the late 1990s and now is an art teacher in the Greenville office. Some of his pupils are among those exhibiting their work in “The Art of Recovery.”
“Psychotherapy can help heal the mind, but art takes a step further and helps to heal the soul as well,” Marks said.
The Art of Recovery program, which received the 2006 Elizabeth O’Neill Verner Governor’s Award for the Arts, frequently looks to exhibit these paintings in settings beyond the department’s administration buildings. Sue Perry, director of community resource development at the Department of Mental Health, said being part of Piccolo Spoleto was a dream come true for both staff members and artists.
Perry has been in charge of the program since its beginning in 2001. She believes that when patients show their art in public, their illness becomes secondary and they can see themselves first and foremost as artists.
For the festival, the Art of Recovery committee selected pieces related to recovery and hope. They also tried to include different painting media to show the diversity of artwork produced throughout the state.
All of the artists involved have stories related to their mental health struggles, Ashley said.
“There are a lot of things that people who have the illness don’t understand,” he said. “On this side you are sane, and on the other side you are crazy. You are walking on a tightrope between it.”
In cases like these, Marks said, art becomes an opportunity for people to express themselves when words may fail them.
Ashley believes that art helps him get control of his thoughts. “I went from being a college graduate to sleep as a homeless man in Arizona because I didn’t want to confront who I was,” he said.
But after undergoing therapy and getting back to his art, he began to believe in himself again. His hope is represented by the green hands in both of his current pieces — and especially by the second one, which clearly depicts someone looking toward the future.
Published in The Post and Courier on June 2, 2013
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Image by Miguel Ángel González. Especial for The Post and Courier
By Lucía Camargo Rojas
In “Noche Andaluza” (“Andalusian Night”), his first piece of choreography as artistic director of the renowned Ballet Flamenco de Andalucia, Olmo shows how dancing gives wings to body and mind. The Spoleto Festival show opens tonight and runs through June 2.
“Noche Andaluza” is an adaptation of “Metafora” (“Metaphor”), which was selected in a 2011 Spanish public competition as the production that would begin a new era for the company after it had been closed for two years.
The 17-year-old Ballet Flamenco de Andalucia is a state-sponsored company of Andalusia, Spain, that keeps alive the flame of large-format flamenco and Spanish classic ballet, according to the flamenco writer Juan Vergillos.
“With Olmo’s direction, the company has acquired youthfulness, new ideas for the choreography and a personal understanding of flamenco and Spanish dancing,” Vergillos said.
Olmo, 32, said he has been more or less in constant movement since he was 9, and that he has never limited himself to one style of dancing.
“Noche Andaluza” certainly showcases traditional flamenco — castanets, fans and bata de cola dresses — but it also depicts a more avant-garde style represented in the solo of one of the most important contemporary flamenco dancers, Pastora Galvan.
The production marks Galvan’s first performance since having a child. At the beginning, she didn’t feel in shape for the rehearsals; even the bata de cola was very heavy for her, she said. But “Noche Andaluza” quickly rejuvenated her. “I added my art, my picaresque and avant-garde dancing style and all my heart.”
Olmo and Galvan have studied together since they were children.
“We are like siblings,” Olmo said. “It has been a dream come true to have her as a guest while I’m directing.”
“Noche Andaluza” has everything you would expect in a flamenco ballet, according to Vergillos. “Charleston audiences probably will find it very eye-catching, showy and colorful,” he said, and it’s an unusual opportunity to see Galvan in collaboration with the group; she typically dances only for her own company.
“There is no tragedy or drama in Olmo’s choreographies,” Vergillos said. “He adds color and balance. He has a soft vision of a whole universe.”
“Metafora” has been performed in Greece, the U.K., Ecuador, Mexico, Colombia and several American cities, including Boston, Washington, D.C., and New York. This is a huge achievement for a company that prepared the production in just a month and a half, and with a reduced budget due to the current economic crisis in Spain.
“I had to adapt to the situation and to make this an artistic experience without much budget,” Olmo said. “At the end, we got good results.”
The 10 young dancers, who were selected from 400 candidates through public auditions, had to learn various dancing styles. But despite these different styles, Ballet Flamenco de Andalucia’s name gives a clear indication of Olmo’s main concern.
“Flamenco is a brand that we cannot mistreat,” he said.
Published in The Post and Courier on May 31, 2013
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The Post and Courier image
By Lucía Camargo Rojas
“Women of Lockerbie” is a moving play that deals with the psychological effects of a tragedy. Devorah Brevoort’s script, which hinges on the 1988 crash of Pan Am Flight 103 in Lockerbie, Scotland, tells the story of fictional characters whose grief for the loss of a loved one is transformative.
The play is being performed at the Chapel Theater by the College of Charleston Department of Theater and Dance as part of the Piccolo Spoleto Festival.
Madeline (Ryan Gunning) and Bill Livingston (Peter Spearman) are a couple from New Jersey who travel to Scotland seven years after the crash, hoping to find some belongings of their son, Adam. While the mother looks fiercely for her son’s remains, the father meets a group of women who wants to persuade U.S. government official George Jones (Bronson Taylor) not to burn the passenger’s clothing, sealed in bags.
Flamenco dance writ large: Esteemed company to light up arena stage
At the beginning, the story’s pace is a bit slow, with the main characters not getting as much attention as, for example, a scene-stealing Scottish woman with a walking stick. Gradually, though, Madeline, an unstable woman unable to deal with her grief, becomes the center of the story.
Even though Gunning is a young woman, she convincingly portrays a mature mother, and among her finest moments is the delicate way she describes the realization that her son was on the plane.
Indeed, this vibrant role overshadowed that of her husband. One would expect a more dramatic explosion from a father who has hidden his feelings for so many years. Simultaneously, the character of Olive Allison (Brenna McNamara) is quite rigid, although she seems much more vivid when it becomes evident that she has also been affected by the crash.
What is remarkable about this play is the ability to depict the different aspects of grief: fault (“Why did I tell him to come for Christmas?”), anxiety, frustration (“Why did this happen to me?”) and hate, to the point that the audience shares the distress of the characters. The simple stage helps to create a mournful and respectful environment reinforced by a chorus that highlights the pain and simultaneously gives rhythm to the plot.
Even though Brevoort at times over-explains the characters’ pain, she does succeed in showing their need to achieve peace of mind.
The strength of “Women of Lockerbie” is its ability to describe suffering in a way that goes beyond a particular tragedy and applies to any calamity, and also the way it highlights the difficulty of true forgiveness.
With such dramatic scenes, several moments — featuring the chorus; Taylor’s strong performance; Allyson Musmeci’s funny portrayal of Hattie, who works for the U.S official; and especially a scene of the women washing the clothes — are a necessary relief for an audience seeking a similar serenity as the characters.
Published in The Post and Courier on May 27, 2013
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Moveable sculpture: Handspring Puppet Company and ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’
Image by Simon Annand published in The Post and Courier
By Lucía Camargo Rojas
Handspring Puppet Company has made puppet horses strong enough for men to ride, puppets that fight apartheid in South Africa and much more.
For Spoleto Festival USA, the company will exhibit its latest invention: puppets that recite Shakespeare. They will add a magical element to a fantastical production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” the result of a collaboration between Handspring and the venerable Bristol Old Vic company.
“In ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream,’ everything from the floor goes up and sometimes comes alive,” Handspring Executive Producer Basil Jones said. “There is kind of magic in all the objects.”
Magic is central to the South African company’s artistic mission: Objects have the right to live.
“The struggle of the puppet is to live; otherwise, it is always death, and to give it life is the job of the puppeteer,” said Adrian Kohler, Handspring’s artistic director.
“A Midsummer Night’s Dream” is the first collaboration between Handspring and Bristol Old Vic since their Tony Award-winning “War Horse.”
The Shakespeare play is a new challenge for a puppet company that has helped integrate puppetry into the theater mainstream.
In this adaptation, Handspring experimented with figures they hadn’t made before: more than 20 carefully carved puppets from small birds to enormous masks.
The company is fearless and imaginative, showing the influence of Western Africa in its work, according to Mervyn Millar, author of “The Horse’s Mouth: Staging Morpurgo’s ‘War Horse.’ ”
“A Midsummer Night’s Dream” is also funny, Kohler said.
“All our plays have been a little bit serious, from political plays to opera,” he said. “We are not great at being comedians, but in Shakespeare’s play, we have broken the mold. There are some wonderful clowns, and it is very funny.”
Jones and Kohler founded Handspring in 1981. They met 10 years before, when they were studying sculpture at the University of Capetown.
Kohler grew up in a house that had a little theater in the garage, he said. His mother was an art teacher who encouraged him to make and perform with puppets. Their influence was evident in his artwork.
Jones, instead, wasn’t very interested in puppets until he graduated and went to live with Kohler in Botswana. During one trip to South Africa, Kohler found some weird puppets. When Jones saw them, he fell in love with them. The mysterious objects had been made in Mali, a region of Africa with a rich puppetry tradition.
When Kohler suggested starting a puppet company, Jones saw the potential.
They began by developing a series of children’s plays but turned to adult audiences in 1985 with “Episodes of an Easter Rising,” a play about people joining the struggle against apartheid in South Africa.
“We wanted to be taken seriously in the theater,” Kohler said. Puppetry is a powerful medium and certainly not only for children, he said.
In 1986, they moved to Johannesburg and met artist William Kentridge, who became the director of their next six productions. Four years later, after Nelson Mandela was released from prison and South Africa started to move toward democracy, it became possible for South African artists to perform overseas. With Kentridge, they performed in Germany, France, Czech Republic, U.S., England and Colombia.
Handspring still was characterized as a small company despite this growing success, but that changed in 2008, when it received a call from stage director Tom Morris, who then was working with the National Theater in London. He suggested creating puppets for a theater adaptation of a children’s novel about horses in World War I.
Kohler designed life-size puppet horses made with leather, aircraft and steel cables, and other material. It was the beginning of “War Horse,” a production that would win five Tony Awards in 2011, including Best Play, and enjoy successful runs around the world.
“When you are going into puppet theater, you aren’t expecting to have an international hit play in your hands,” Kohler said.
Now Handspring is in demand. Puppets are produced at a fast clip, and the staff has expanded from seven to 25. In 2010, Jones and Kohler created the nonprofit Handspring Trust for Puppetry Arts to identify and assist the next generation of puppet artists.
Millar said the company creates some of the most beautiful puppets in the world and has a quality of acting not easy to find.
“The level of subtlety that they give to a performance has changed what people expect from puppetry in theater,” Millar said. “They are always looking to make puppets do something people think puppets can’t do.”
Published in The Post and Courier on May 25, 2013
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Image By Michael Cavalca published in The Post and Courier
By Briana Prevost and Lucía Camargo Rojas
In 2002, young dancers from the shantytowns of Brazil who had been discovered by a French choreographer, took to the Spoleto stage combining a mix of salsa, hip-hop and native capoeira movements into their choreography.
Mourad Merzouki, who has Algerian roots, started the all-male dance group several years earlier. It has since gone on to tour the world. At Spoleto again to perform for the first time in more than 10 years, the group is presenting a new production, “Correria/Agwa.”
In an email interview, Merzouki, the artistic director of Compagnie Kafig, discussed his dance background, his take on combining modern and traditional styles and his impression of the company he started.
Q: What do you remember the most about your last performance in Charleston?
A: We performed the show Dix Versions, I had a really good experience there.
Q: What made you write “Correria/Agwa”?
A: I wanted to tell a story on a universal theme, that means a lot to every people in every country. For Agwa, I wanted to work on a project which was not only linked to what we already know about Brazil, the favelas, etc. Water and running were very interesting to me because they concern dancers and also the rest of the world. In today’s society, we need to run, and water is a vital element.
Q: You started working in a circus and then became a hip-hop dancer. What are the similarities between circus and dance?
A: That is right, I first started with circus. I was an acrobat and I had a passion for performing arts. Hip-hop dance allowed me to bring both together. I also had a strong desire to share and introduce this form of art to the public.
Q: What does hip-hop have that other arts don’t?
A: Hip-hop dance is particularly interesting because it managed to shift from the streets to the stages, without being locked in one or the other. Both styles are developing and are complementary to each other, they still exchange a lot and dialogue together. For me, these two forms of expression are really different but equally important as sources of creativity, and I am still creating for both. In this way, hip-hop is very different from other dance traditions.
Q: What are the advantages and disadvantages of mixing different kinds of dancing and working with people with a variety of cultural backgrounds?
A: The advantages are that dance is a universal language, therefore we do not need words to understand each others. As far as dance is concerned, I only see advantages! Sometimes it becomes more complicated when we get into logistics, but I always find it interesting.
Q: What about the movements of capoeira urged you to include that type of dance in your routines?
A: In this piece, I did not particularly want to integrate capoeira or specific movements, I used the dancers’ vocabulary as a starting point, and, of course, we can felt some capoeira influences. But there are many other influences.
Q: First circus, then hip-hop, then samba, then capoeira. What’s next?
A: My approach is still to bring many different styles and artistic disciplines into hip-hop. I try to add circus, martial arts, visual arts and live music in most of my pieces. There are still martial arts aspects in street dance, it’s all connected. I am always imagining creations with an accent on openness to the world. I just ended a project with Taiwan, but it’s only the beginning. I hope I could have new projects with other countries, such as Japan, etc. I keep working on opening and sharing my way of dancing — hip-hop — to other styles and other cultures.
Q: Do you think the Brazilian dancers in the group have a sense of nationalism performing capoeira?
A: These dancers are very open-minded, curious of the rest of the world, and open-minded dancers. They don’t wonder about nationalism, on the contrary they’re eager to discover the world and they are very generous. Touring the world like they do is a wonderful and unique experience, and they are grateful for that.
Q: What types of cultural influences do you see that style of dance having not only in its country of origin, but also in the places the group has toured?
A: My work is deeply influenced by the artists I meet through my travels and the tours. But once the piece is created, it doesn’t change much, I try to stay as close as possible to the initial work.
Q: How was the experience of working with people who lived in the favelas?
A: I have been introduced to Brazilian dancers by Guy Darmet, who used to be the director of the Maison de la Danse in Lyon and lives between France and Brazil. He knew these dancers very well and as he has been following me for more than 20 years, he asked me to create a piece for them. These young dancers, mostly from Rio’s favelas, were dancing to express themselves, to exist, to survive ... the rhythm and the passion is really present within them. It really fascinated me and I decided to create the piece “Agwa” for them. When I first met these dancers, I really took their vocabulary as a starting point; I took their movements to create the piece. I also gave them “homework” and then my job was to connect the pieces and refine the whole choreography. For them, it is a very special experience because it totally changed their approach to dance. As they were initially dancing in the streets, they now became real professional dancers.
Q: Why “Kafig”? What does it mean?
A: In 1989, with a group of friends and dancers, we created the Company “Accrorap,” among them was Kader Attou, who is now the director of the Centre Choregraphique National of La Rochelle in France. After creating our piece “Kafig” in 1996, I wanted to put together my own project, more personal. This piece gave the name to my new company, Kafig which means “cage” in German and Arabic (in relation to the dancers’ backgrounds): the theme of this piece was about being locked up. We chose this theme because at the beginning, hip-hop was often locked up in one style and one specific representation. The point was to deliver the dance from this “cage,” to push it out of its boundaries.
Q: What are the characteristics of a performance made by Compagnie Kafig?
A: In my pieces, I try to tell stories on universal themes, and topics that mean a lot to every people in every countries. I don’t necessarily want to deliver a particular message through all my creations. For example in my last piece, “Yo Gee Ti” that I made with five contemporary dancers from Taiwan and five hip-hop dancers from France, I worked on the theme of fiber, knitting and building fabrics as if we were “sewing the bodies,” but the point is really to share some poetry and emotions through the piece. The objective is also to spread this form of dance, to make it accessible and also to raise awareness in all audiences. I am always imagining creations with an accent on openness to the world. I keep working on opening and sharing my way of dancing, hip-hop, to other styles and other cultures.
Q: How do you go about choosing the music that’s used to choreograph the dances?
A: I choose music that inspires me, that calls to my mind and reminds me of interesting topics. Then I choose according to what I want to tell. In these pieces, I did not want to choose music that would match too much to their styles, I wanted to push out the boundaries through music and dance, by using different styles together.
Q: What should the audience of the Spoleto Festival 2013 expect from Compagnie Kafig’s return performance?
A: I hope they will spend a great moment of dance with the Brazilian troupe, and that this piece will bring them inspiration, motivation and the willingness to open themselves to the rest of the world.
Published in The Post and Courier on May 24, 2013
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Héctor Abad won WOLA-Duke Human Rights Book Award
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Abad had won the WOLA-Duke Human Rights Book Award for his book Oblivion: A Memoir. The prize, created in 2008 by the non-profit Washington Office of Latin America and Duke University, honors the best current, non-fiction book published in English on human rights, democracy and social justice in Latin America. Abad received the prize on November 28, at Busboys and Poets in Washington, D.C.
Oblivion, first published in Spanish in 2006, was a best-seller in Colombia. The book narrates the writer’s memories of his loving father, Hector Abad Gómez, a physician who developed public health programs in Medellín, Colombia, and who was assassinated in 1987 by paramilitary groups because of his condemnation of their actions.
In 2010, the British publishing house, Old Street Publishing, translated the book into English. Last year, a copy of Anne McLean and Rosalind Harvey’s translation reached the desk of Farrar, Straus and Giroux’ editor, Jesse Coleman.
“I thought it was a beautiful book and that it deserved to have an audience [in the U.S.] because people here can relate to it,” Coleman says. “Even though it was a Latin American story, it is also a universal story. I thought it would appeal to literary readers and also to people who like memoirs.”
Abad says he wrote the book because he wanted his children to get to know their grandfather and to understand him within his circumstances. What was happening, who was doing the killing and who was being killed. He wanted to depict a family that was living in a troubled country.
“I wanted to combine the most intimate with the most public issue: the political assassination of my father. If I didn’t do a personal edition of the book, it was because I wanted others to read about this injustice,” explains Oblivion’s author.
Although it was the first time that Abad was published in the U.S., the book was reviewed by prominent American newspapers such as The Washington Post and The New York Times.
Michael Greenberg wrote in his New York Times review that “Oblivion is a searing memoir written with love and blood: both family blood, the kind that’s thicker than water, and the spilled blood of barbarism and murder. From the first pages we feel the internal necessity driving this story. It is obvious that Héctor Abad had no choice but to tell it.”
Roger Atwood, creator of the WOLA-Duke award and regular contributor for publications such as The Boston Globe, and The Times Literary Supplement, nominated the book after a review in a British newspaper prompted him to buy it.
“When the award was designed, this was the sort of book that I was thinking of,” he says.
The award’s objective is to direct Americans to recently published books that have real human rights content about Latin America, and that are accessible to any kinds of readers.
“Choosing Abad’s book this year was a unanimous decision for different reasons, but especially the emotional part of the book had a great effect on all of the judges,” explains Leonor Blum, chair of this year’s award.
“The book was very touching,” Atwood says. “The way Hector Abad depicts his father is so eloquent that he becomes a real person to the reader. I thought the global effect was to create a very reliable portrait of this doctor who believes very strongly in treating people decently, and who has humanitarian values.”
Abad Gómez is portrayed in the book as a person concerned about the health of Medellín’s population. “My sister says that he seemed almost like a madman, or a maniac, stopping in front of nearly every patient and asking: ‘What’s wrong with this child?’ Then he would answer his own question: ‘He’s hungry.’ And a bit farther on: ‘What’s wrong with this child?’ ‘She’s hungry.’ (…) ‘The only thing wrong with these children is that they’re hungry, and an egg and a glass of milk a day would be enough to keep them from being here. But we’re not capable of giving them this: an egg and a glass of milk! Not even that! It’s inhumane!’”
Atwood explains that even though the main purpose of the book was not to describe a human rights issue, Abad’s publication “shows the human consequences of injustice, and the lack of respect of human rights. It also describes the ways in which a society can deteriorate and become more and more violent.”
Coleman says he wasn’t surprised that Abad’s book won the award. “I didn’t read it as a human rights book, but that’s there. It makes a claim for human rights but I don’t think that’s the point of the book. The book is a love letter to his father.”
Abad explains that he never planned to write a human rights book but he remembers that one day Carlos Gaviria, Colombian presidential candidate in 2006 and one of the persons to whom the book is dedicated, told him that Oblivion had done more for human rights in Colombia than any academic research, activist’ speech or human rights manifesto.
“I didn’t write it with that purpose in mind, but literary works have their own life, their own journey. And it seems that’s how the WOLA-Duke judges read it,” Abad says. “I usually present Oblivion as a novel, but in the U.S, they classified it as non-fiction because everything that is narrated in it is real. These are situations that happened just as I told them or, at least, as I remember them.”
Both Blum and Atwood say the good intentions of books about human rights often outweigh their literary merits, with Atwood specifying that the emotional part sometimes does not come very naturally or that the result is insincere or even strange. But the two judges agree that this is not the case with Oblivion, which is so well-written and compelling that they both cried when they read it.
At the same time, according to Atwood, the book gives a sense of the loss of amazing people because of the conflict in Colombia, not only in the rural area but also in cities like Medellín. “The book describes how polarization leads to more conflict,” he says, “and how that process works in a human level, descends and touches human lives: people, families, and in particular Abad’s family.”
Abad says about his father in the book: “His case is not unique, and perhaps it’s not even the saddest. There are thousands and thousands of murdered fathers in this country whose ground is so fertile for death. Nevertheless, I believe my father’s case is a special one, and for me is the saddest, epitomizing the many, many unjust deaths we’ve suffered here.”
When he wrote the book, he was thinking of a sympathetic reader, someone who has read until the end of the book.
“His sex, age, religion, race, national identity or culture, didn’t interest me. I think that basically all human beings are very similar: I believe that if there are literary universals is because there are human universals that none culture can mold in a different way because they are our biological and psychical hardware,” Abad says.
Oblivion’s author certainly wasn’t expecting the award. He hadn’t even heard about it when he received the email with the information.
“I recognize my ignorance. I didn’t know anything about WOLA, I’m not a human rights activist, I am not an academic, and I don’t study the relationship between the United States and Colombia. That is why, when I received the news, I had to do some research.”
He asked about the award to an Italian friend who is familiar with human rights issues. Abad’s friend told him that WOLA was a serious and independent office, and that it was an honor for Oblivion to win that prize.
Given Abad’s subject matter, being recognized by a U.S. organization was a particularly fitting honor. His father got a master’s degree in University of Minnesota, worked at the Washington Office of the Pan American Health Organization, and traveled frequently to the United States in order to present his medical research.
“At home, I learned to appreciate American academy: its science, independence and reliability,” says Abad. “I think that my dad would have liked this award as much as I like it.”
By Lucía Camargo Rojas
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Review: Juniot Díaz's "This Is How You Lose Her"
Junot Díaz’s latest book explores the loneliness that comes after losing a beloved person. Yunior, the author’s well-known character in Drown and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, returns in This is How You Lose Her. His girlfriend has broken up with him after she discovers he was unfaithful to her. He makes efforts to keep her, but every attempt is a failure, and he knows it.
Six of the book’s nine short-stories portray Yunior’s insubstantial love relationships developed in his childhood, adolescence and adulthood. The other three stories explore how his philandering father and brother have been the only male role models in his life.
Yunior asked in one story “It was sort of like love, wasn’t it?” and in other story says “Like it might be love,” showing how the end is just being postponed.
Díaz, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and creative writing professor currently at MIT, takes advantage of his Dominican background to write an English text spiced with Spanish words that give rhythm to the narration.
But most importantly, Díaz adds his personal ingredient: a humorous style within a kind of ‘macho-Latino’ stream of consciousness, full of visceral language which makes you laugh once in a while. Yunior says that one of his girlfriends has “a big Dominican ass that seems to exist in a fourth dimension beyond jeans. An ass that could drag the moon out of orbit.”
Díaz’s voice is held in a solid structure framed by the Hispanic environment translated to the U.S. The book’s female characters constantly accuse Dominican men of bringing the cheating culture with them, causing women to suffer and question if they are really loved.
The only female narrator says: “Ana Iris once asked me if I loved him and I told her about the lights in my old home in the capital, how they flickered and you never knew if they would go out or not. You put down your things and you waited and couldn’t do anything really until the lights decided. This, I told her, is how I feel.”
This Is How You Lose Her can be read in one sitting or story by story: each tale is a unique piece of art, delicately structured and strongly narrated. The characters are so well-developed that their stories stay vividly in your mind for a long time. You hate Yunior and then you love him, but at the end you feel sorry for him. Although he has been a ‘macho’ character throughout the book, he is devastated by the loss. “Like someone flew a plane into your soul. Like someone flew two planes into your soul.”
In the last story, Yunior tries to explain that by writing all his love stories, why he failed, why he betrayed his partners over and over again, and why he is lonely. In the process Yunior finds that “sometimes a start is all we ever get.” The reader sighs, feeling that Yunior might be right: maybe life is just a compendium of many flashes −like each story of the book− many, many attempts to find ourselves.
Published in Newhouse.com on March 28, 2013
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"Amour" intimately explores the limits of love
By Lucía Camargo Rojas
Review: Haneke's Palme d'Or winning film successfully portrays the visceral and tragic sides of a husband's devotion.
Shocking and brutally honest is Michael Haneke’s new movie, Amour. Most of the film takes place in the Parisian apartment of an 80-year-old couple who has to face a hard situation: She suffered a stroke and the right side of her body was paralyzed.
Georges (Jean-Louis Trintignant) and Anne (Emmanuelle Riva) are retired music teachers and very cultured people. The long shots focused in the actions they do together show the intimate side of their life. The viewer starts to get accustomed to their routine. How George helps Anne to go to the bathroom or to eat. How they talk. How they know and respect each other.
But each day Anne’s condition worsens from partial paralysis to a mental debilitation and childlike state. The normality and dignity they effectively tried to build suddenly broke, making more difficult for George to keep his promise of not hospitalizing his wife again.
Both Trintignant and Riva’s splendid performances (they are French movie stars) showing the real connection only made in a life-long relationship, and Haneke’s focus on trying to capture the reality of the couple’s private moments (there is not even a soundtrack) create a suffocating environment, and made it difficult to answer the question behind the movie. What would a true lover do in this situation? This is what the film—awarded with the Palme d'Or at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival—seems to ask.
Haneke’s disturbing style, common in movies such as The White Ribbon, continues in this film but emphasizes the tragedy of this story in the smallest gestures. Although Amour is not a romantic movie, it is a film about love, its obstacles and its limits. How can or cannot a man see his wife lose her dignity? It is also an absolutely compelling movie which makes even the most difficult decision a man has to make seem completely understandable.
Amour is currently slated for limited release in New York and Los Angeles on Dec. 19.
Published in NewsHouse.com on September 21, 2012
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The Yellow Menace
Chronicle written in Alberto Salcedo class. Illustrated by my brother, Felipe Camargo.
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"I need and I’m committed to refer to violence”
Sair García, a Colombian artist, exhibited the Éxodo series that evidences the issue of forced displacement, in Artbo 2009.
Sair García. Photogaph: Artbo 2009
There is a gap in Sair Garcia’s work. A background that means immensity and that makes figures more visible and distressing. These figures, drawn in the corners of the painting, evoke whole families who must endure the pain of violence, disappearance and displacement. A recurrent concern in all the work of this young artist born in Barrancabermeja, and Art graduate from the National University, and who has experienced in the flesh the ravages of war: in 1988 one of his brothers was taken away and today no one knows where he is. This painful event, summed to a large number of missing friends, has made Garcia feel a deep need and commitment to approach this subject through art.
“What has happened in my life and the lives of many others, as the entire history of Barrancabermeja, a city lashed with too much violence, generates in oneself the necessity to talk about war repercussions, but in a delicate manner so as to not fall in sensationalism. Because one has to have respect for those who are gone and for the ones that stay,” explains the artist.
Through his work, Garcia wants to show not only painful images but also to make spectators react, give them a warning, show them what is happening to try to change it. “Through my work I want to show evidence of those psychological areas that are generated after traumatic events such as displacement: a feeling of immensity in the head and in the heart,” says Garcia, who exhibited in Artbo 2009 the Éxodo series, in which the background of the paintings is made from crude oil.
In the works of these series the artist speaks of the drama that is generated because of displacement all over the world: people from Africa, Palestine, Iraq, Cuba, México, Peru, and other countries, have had to bear it. He wanted to focus on a particular element which has always accompanied him: petroleum as a displacement factor and war trigger.
Garcia has participated in three of five Artbo versions and considers that the fifth version is a sample of how the Bogota International Art Fair has nothing to envy to any other fair in Latin America, and he even dares to say that it is leveled with worldwide standards.
“The pieces that I have seen in Artbo 2009 are part of the complexity the fair is acquiring every year. The visual and plastic complexities, and all the proposals, in general, are more interesting every time. Up to the point that participating in the fair is more demanding every time, which means that we are competing in a quality field and that also makes it more provocative,” he concludes.
Written in Spanish and translated to English by Lucia Camargo-Rojas and published in October, 2009 at Artboonline.com, Bogotá International Art Fair webpage.
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Children’s world on canvas
The Argentinean painter Claudio Gallina, exhibited his piece about education and childhood in Artbo 2009.
Claudio Gallina. Photograph: Artbo 2009
It was 2002, the moment when the economical crisis burst in Argentina. The main character: Claudio Gallina, teacher in the School of Fine Arts in Buenos Aires. His role: evidence the decay in which education was at that point. His formula to do it: a work of art. This was how Claudio Gallina, an Argentinean artist, became interested in the education topic in his own work. Years before, he had started a technical program in architecture but he realized that what really interested him was the artistic side of it.
That is why he decided to study arts and focused on set design: he was interested in mixing art and architecture. “In my work both sides are evident –Gallina explains–. I try to make a non literal narration, more poetical, from a space, a stage, an action, that finally creates a theatrical situation”.
Quickly, his interest concerning the educational topic began to mutate until it became a concern for childhood, particularly for everything that goes through children’s heads, “that crazy world they have”, he comments.
And he discovered that the child has a close relation with the artist. “Their mind is very open, they are always searching and questioning. For example, when they play, they create the whole stage as the creator does. And they put rules. When the artist paints we have to play, it is an investigation that can go right or wrong. Suddenly, the piece can be created by coincidence, but at the end one puts one’s own rules”, he declares.
His attraction to children’s thought has been so strong that in his work he has used chairs, desks and even notebooks. In Artbo 2009 visitors could appreciate a notebook series that was created by kindergarten children and that Gallina took in order to elaborate a new creation. “For me, children’s graphic is plastic, it is painting, and it is like a drawing. That is why I allow myself to modify their work because I share their tendency towards plasticity. In addition, I incorporate the paper of the notebook to the canvas”, he clarifies.
Currently, Gallina is working in a new series that is based on the following statement by Michelangelo, Renaissance artist: “The sculpture is inside the marble. The only thing that one has to do is to remove the extra marble”. In his case, he wants to erase a paper so that an image appears. The name of this new work is The eraser series (La serie del borrador) that starts in children´s doodles and that he erases so that a new image appears.
The artist has participated in four of the five versions of Artbo and states that he loves to visit Bogotá because he feels at home. Regarding the fair, he says that without a doubt it is “one of the most beautiful fairs that I know. The quality of the people, the quality of the works, of the montage and the space, you don’t see it in other places. The work selection is very beautiful. This year the pavilion of Artecámara particularly caught my attention, all the work that you find in there is very good”, he concludes.
Written by Lucía Camargo Rojas and published in October 2009 at Artboonline.com, Bogotá International Art Fair webpage.
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Tear stopper
The Mexican artist Iván puig exhibited an unusual piece in Artbo 2009 that emits a sound each time somebody dies because of a violent death in Colombia and México.
Parallantos. Photograph: Artbo 2009
Every 13 minutes a series of black umbrellas, which were at Artbo 2009, emitted a sound that sounded like a shot. The noise was activated by a homicide counting machine that was part of the installation and counted violent deaths in Colombia and México. The machine started working on October 21, 2009, day in which the stand was opened for the public.
The sound alluded to another homicide registered by the counting machine. After 13 minutes the story repeated itself, just as many Colombians and Mexicans have lived it, according to the average that Iván Puig, Mexican artist, observed after checking the official death statistics for homicide in 2008 in the two countries: in less than 15 minutes another person has died.
The piece, called Parallantos, (Tear Stopper) was conceived a month before Artbo opened its doors. As Puig knew that his work was going to be presented in Bogotá he wanted to make a new creation that referred to the violence of his own country and the Colombian one as well, that evoked the pain of those deaths and highlighted the cruelty of war.
Artbo visitors could see in the stand, which was part of the Project rooms, how the number increased day by day. Just five days after the installation was inaugurated, the counter had registered more than 500 deaths.
The exhibit that is presented in the fair is the first part of the work, as Puig has already planned the second part of the installation in which the umbrellas will open and close each time the sound is emitted. The constant movement will refer to the Latin American countries’ incapability to change their socio-political situation.
Written by Lucía Camargo Rojas and published in October 2009 at Artboonline.com, Bogotá International Art Fair webpage.
Translated from Spanish to English by Claudia del Castillo (official translator).
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“Fairs are a way to support the artistic market”
For Zélica García, director of Zona Maco, the Mexican art fair specialized in contemporary art, spaces like Artbo are fundamental in moments of crisis.
What has been your experience at the fair like?
It has surprised me very much. I did not imagine what I was going to see and, even though I have only seen the first pavilions, I can say that the Projects fascinated me and the level of certain galleries I think is very good, as they made an appropriate selection of their pieces.
What do you consider can be highlighted from Artbo?
It is well organized; they have built the stands and walls appropriately. Artbo is a young fair like the one in Mexico and like us; they decided to eliminate the carpet. I also love the space, which is like a warehouse, and the size. Finally, I love people from Bogotá, they’re great, and everyone has been very nice. I have felt like in my country.
How do you perceive contemporary Latin American art in the international context?
I believe that contemporary Latin American art is becoming more important internationally. Everyone is paying attention to what is happening in Latin America and that is very good for all of us who work in this field. Moreover, many Latin American artists are presenting their work at European or American galleries.
How do you see Colombian contemporary art in the world outlook?
I believe that there are some Colombian artists who, like artists of all Latin America, are in the same level as any international artist.
What roles do art fairs like Artbo do have in the middle of the economical crisis that is affecting the entire world?
These kinds of fairs are a good opportunity for clients to continue purchasing and for the market to go on. It is a way to support the market, to keep it growing or, at least, to keep it working and functioning. I believe that it is the most important moment for art fairs to exist. It is a difficult moment, a time of crisis, and it is when galleries need these types of forums for promoting contemporary art. It is everybody’s effort and not an individual one.
Written by Lucía Camargo Rojas and published in October 2009 at Artboonline.com, Bogotá International Art Fair webpage.
Written by Lucía Camargo Rojas and published on October 2009 at Artbonline.com.
Translated from Spanish to English by Claudia del Castillo (official translator).
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Hapiness pills
Dana Wyse. Photograph: Artbo 2009
Have you ever suffered heartache so intensely that you've wanted to buy some pills to forget the person who provoked it? Or have you wanted to go to the pharmacy and buy a medication that enables you to forget the bad things that you have been through? Or perhaps you have longed to be able to clone the perfect girlfriend of your best friend? What if you could go to the drugstore and buy some pills to have the perfect life?In the corridors of Artbo you'll find a series of 150 bags containing the pills to solve all your woes. Overall, the curious drugs are part of the work Jesus Had a sister Productions by Dana Wyse, located at the stand of the Alliance Colombo-Française (French Alliance).
The Hapiness Pills are the product of more than 15 years of work by Wyse, a stock shareholder that has not yet decided whether she is or not an artist, but who for more than a decade has noticed how people in Paris go to pharmacies, which are found in every corner, to solve their problems. Over time, she started relating these thoughts with her own life: "What if I could have a perfect life? What would it take to get there?" And he thought of some pills that would have the power to fulfill dreams.
She works on the project occasionally, whenever she can. "Sometimes I do 30 bags in one day. But I can stop doing them for a year. It Depends. If it's a good year, no pills" said Wyse, who is very sure that it's a job that will continue until she dies.
"When I do the bags of pills I feel happy and I laugh a lot. It's like a therapy. What is surprising is that, two days after, the newspapers are advertising them. Science fiction becomes reality" she says.
This remarkable and curious work is part of the selection of pieces that you can find in Artbo.
Written by Lucía Camargo Rojas and published on October 2009 at Artbonline.com English version.
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"Zapata's work is a marvel": Manzur
David Manzur, renowned Colombian artist, is in the middle of his tour of the fair. While observing the works in its path greets students, colleagues and gallery owners who leave their chores for a moment to cross a few words with him.
The maestro said that fairs like Artbo "serve to shake a little bit, by comparison, what is the stance of an artist, because they test the conceptual stand of each others." And he admits that while it has seen works of great quality, he retains on his mind the stones of his compatriot Hugo Zapata, not only because of the arrangement of his work by Gallera Sextante so that you can see it without difficulty (as it has much air around it), but because "it is a wonder of work".
"I was impressed Zapata sculptures. Precisely because his work is so different from mine I appreciate it, because I see it as an spectator. For me," and points to the rock ?Amantes?, "these stones are in themselves most ancient art, the essential one. I would say that they cover the entire history of art, from the most primitive to the most futuristic forms" said Manzur.
Zapata's Rocks
On the other hand, Zapata explains that his facination with stones because began as he identifies them as the memory of things. "If you look back and forward, what remains in all cultures is the alphabet of the stones. In fact, before the man, the rock had also wrote the memoirs of the events that occurred, such as changes in the cortex land and volcanic eruptions. There is nothing in cultures that have more memory than the stone. "
The artist has created a poetic relationship with the rocks, to the point that when asked if he could live without them, he takes a thought for a moment and replies, "is a song for me, there's an echo in them, as if It is a cello and I have to make it sound. I could live without them yes, but I would not like it. "
Regarding its presence in the fifth version of Artbo, Zapata is very pleased. "I think this is the best show we've had. There is more maturity, and host level. What most strikes me is the energy, the aurora that it is perceived. People are seeing new proposals as normal. I am sure that this (fair) it?s going to get more galleries. We can not lower our guard. "
Finally, the reporter asked about Manzur. Zapata answered without hesitation that it is a great teacher, a poet, and clarifies that he admires his strength, durability, his ability to investigate and his poetry. "Manzur is like a free monk," concludes Zapata.
Written by Lucía Camargo Rojas and published on October 2009 at Artbonline.com English version.
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Playing with art
In the children’s pavilion “You have to contribute to” (“Pon de tu parte”), both children and adults can interact with reproductions from different artists’ studios. They also will have the possibility to appreciate the works of 1000 primary public school students that were invited by the CCB.
“We are free!” yelled a boy that ran inside pavilion 9 “You have to contribute to” of Artbo. His reaction showed how this space of interaction, unique among art fairs in the world, works with exploration, discovery and the enjoyment of artistic aspects and concepts, in a free and spontaneous learning environment.
While in other pavilions of the fair the best of world art is showcased, untouchable, in this interaction room children, young people and adults can dismantle, arm and question art pieces as they want to. Neftalí Vanegas, who designed the Artbo 2009 pavilion along with Daniel Castro, Juan Restrepo and Camilo Sánchez, affirms that in this space “everyone will have a great time”.
According to Andrea Walker, director of Artbo, “the children’s pavilion is another attractive point of the fair and it was created to make children appreciate art from an early age, promoting in them their creativity and the enjoyment of highly expressive artistic spaces”.
In this pavilion there are also exposed the works of 1000 elementary school students’ who used conciliation to resolve their school conflicts as a part of the “Hermes” program of School Conciliation of the Bogotá Chamber of Commerce (CCB). The young artists participated in an opening for people between 7 to 12 years old that answered the question Which is the part of your house you prefer to be in? Painting a piece that, along with others from their classmates, would cover and give life to the pavilion.
During the fair, the CCB will take the young artists to visit the children’s pavilion for free so that they are able to appreciate their own work and enjoy the games that are offered in this space.
The visitors, in addition to having the chance of seeing the works of the students, will be able to visit reproductions of the studios of artists such as Vermeer, Matisse, Murakami and Hockney. “The idea is that those who visit the pavilion understand that the house is also an artistic space and they can explore some of the tools that these painters used, such as technology, to achieve creative results”, concludes Vanegas.
Written by Lucía Camargo Rojas and published in October 2009 at Artbonoticias, Bogotá International Art Fair newspaper.
Translated from Spanish to English by Claudia del Castillo (official translator).
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I was at Artecámara
Thanks to the project for Colombian young artists –Artecámara, created by the Bogotá Chamber of Commerce, Miler Lagos has shown his work abroad. This year, the sculptor comes back to Artbo sponsored by both a Mexican and Venezuelan gallery.
When Miler Lagos was a boy he came close to a ball lying in a park. He wanted to hit it with his foot but his plan did not work when he realized that the ball, instead of air, was full of sand. The shock that this experience produced would generate, more than two decades later, one of the works that would make him famous and that was presented at the Artecámara pavilion in the first version of Artbo.
The piece, called Levedad insoportable (Unbearable lightness) (2004-2006), produces strangeness in the spectator when facing balloons filled not with air but with cement. Its originality and critical vision made that Lagos’ name quickly went around the fair’s pavilions. In the second version of the fair two international galleries looked for him to offer a job.
For Lagos, Artecámara “ is like a cannon that shoots young artists, as it gives them the opportunity to show themselves”. The fact that his piece Cimientos (Foundations) (2007) was sold before Artbo 2007 was opened shows it.
His apparitions in the fair have permitted him to connect with curators and galleries that have taken him to make projects in the United States, Chile, México and Caracas, and to enter the Cisneros and Rubell collections.
This year Lagos returns to Artbo, with the galleries that looked for him in 2006, and with two projects in which, as the ones he did before, the physical properties of the materials are directly related to the construction of meaning. In Attraction (2009) oil and chocolate are placed in a parallel position as energetic fountains that affect the feelings in opposite ways. In Semillas mágicas (Magical seeds) (2008) a video shows a ceiba and tree-nests made with seeds and cotton from the same tree, referring to the wish of accumulating wealth in detriment of natural resources. Right know Miler does not stop.
Written by Lucía Camargo Rojas and published in October 2009 at Artbonoticias, Bogotá International Art Fair newspaper.
Translated from Spanish to English by Claudia del Castillo (official translator).
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Brazilian artist exhibits her work as a preamble to Artbo
Chiara Banfi. Photography: CCB
The Andes mountain chain was a source of inspiration for the Brazilian artist Chiara Banfi when reproducing a paper shaped mountain with music sheets. This work is displayed since October 9th in the walls of the exhibition room of the Bogotá Chamber of Commerce (CCB), Salitre office. The work is an appetizer to what will be an independent sample of four artists called Exactitud errante (Roaming Accuracy), and will take place from the 22nd to 26th of October in Artbo 2009.
The Artecámara pavilion will host Bianfi's work alongside that of her fellow Brazilian artist Lia Chaia and the Colombian artists Beatriz Olano and Andrés Ramírez Gaviria. The exhibition of the four Latin American artists is a space concieved for reflection on geometrical thinking and reflects a concern for the physical space in relation to the visual project.
According to Maria Iovino, curator of the exhibition "The four artists share a strong structural emphasis on their proposals, an interest in understanding perfection, and the concern to understand such issues as a conclusion of what movement means. Hence the name of the exhibition is Exactitud errante (Roaming Accuracy)?
For Chiara Banfi, who was part of Artbo 2008, having 20m² given by Bogota Chamber of Commerce showroom is a challenge that defies her creativity. Moreover, being a part of Artbo 2009 is a task that honours and excites her.
"The beauty of doing exhibitions in other countries is that there is an exchange of knowledge, information and taste," said Banfi.
In the last version of the fair, the Brazilian artist had the opportunity to visit Bogota for the first time. The memory of the Andes mountain chain that, in Banfi's own words, "can be seen from anywhere in the city," was reflected, along with the image of the mountains that surrounded her during her childhood in Brazil, in her work Lugar (2009 ). This exhibition will be on display until the 13th of November.
Furthermore, Banfi's visit to our country last year allowed her to meet national artists and works and inquire into the cultural world. Therefore she affirms without hesitation that Colombian art has "great potential" and admits that she is curious to know the works on display at this year´s edition of ArtBo.
According to Banfi, it´s very important that the Bogota Chamber of Commerce makes efforts such as Artbo : "I am grateful that I am given the opportunity to work in these spaces because it´s a very positive influence in my work as an artist," she concludes.
Written by Lucía Camargo Rojas and published on September 2009 at Artbonline.com English version.
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Freedom in words
The Ministry of Culture promotes writing workshops for inmates of several prisons.
It was a moment in which she was seized with anger because that woman had not only verbally mistreated her over and over, but also had been telling to everyone that she was pregnant from her husband. Mariela García Agudelo could not stand that situation anymore and took one of her husband’s weapons killing the woman that spoilt her life. Nowadays, she is serving time for homicide in the Women’s Reclusion in Cali, Colombia.
During seven years, she escaped justice. She had to lie and bear public derision. Finally, she went to jail. “I cannot compare the days I was in streets to the ones that I have spent here,” says García. In prison, she remembered the story that she strongly wanted to forget and has had to face. Indeed, she decided to write it.
She wrote during four weeks under the moonlight because in the penitentiary the lights go off at nine o’ clock. “I slept in the upper part of the bunk bed. That is why I could take advantage of a little moonbeam that crossed the window until two or three o’ clock in the morning. I focused in the silence of the night. While I was writing, there was pain; there were tears. One relives the moment of failure over and over again. But I feel satisfied that others could read my story and learn from my mistake”, she comments.
Mariela’s story will be published, along with others written by Colombian inmates, in a book that will compile the texts created last year in the “Freedom in Words” workshops, carried out by the National Network of Creative Writing Workshops (Renata for its acronym in Spanish), one of the branches of the National Reading Plan and Libraries of the Colombian Ministry of Culture.
The workshops were created in 2005 by José Zuleta, a writer from Cali, because he identified the inmates’ interest in writing. Last year, the initiative was received by Renata and accompanies the National Reading Plan and Libraries National lecture objective: “to transform Colombia in to a country that reads”.
The colossal project includes inmates who joined the second phase of the plan last year in April. With the support of the then-director of the National Penitentiary and Prison Institute (INPEC for its acronym in Spanish), retired general Eduardo Morales, the initiative of the Minister of Culture, Paula Marcela Lorenzo, to take reading to penitentiary institutions, was given free rein. Seven of them, located in Medellín, Cali, Popayán and Acacías, have been a part of the pilot project. It is hoped that this year the program can include Quibdó, San Andrés, Tumaco, Leticia, Guamo, Pereira, and Manizales.
In this way, the project will cover the 140 Colombian prisons. Even though currently all of them have libraries, their collections are out of date and they lack an adequate process of library management. The plan wants to equip the libraries with new books that respond to the inmates’ interests and to continue promoting reading.
Libraries in Jails
The Women’s Reclusion in Cali is the only establishment where a previously systematized library is functioning. It is equipped with 700 volumes, a computer with software specialized in library loans, a DVD player and a television set, as well as Colombian films and reading promotional kits, donated by the Ministry of Culture, and shelves offered by the INPEC. Tomorrow another library in the Penitentiary and Prison Establishment “Bellavista”, in Medellín, will be inaugurated.
In that prison, the female inmates, trained by National Library employees, are in charge of the library’s management. “They know each book in the library, manage the loan software, and encourage their peers to read,” explains Luz Adriana Gómez, coordinator of the project for implementing library services in penitentiary establishments.
Meiser Serna Guevara is one of the four inmates in charge of the library’s management. “The interns are waiting for each new book that arrives,” she comments excitedly. “One gives them a book and they have between 10 and 12 days to return it. When I realize they are interested in a particular title, I recommend another one.” Thus, the books are in permanent movement inside the prison. The director, Claudia Patricia Giraldo, explains enthusiastically that they are loaning, in average, 225 books daily for the 337 inmates.
Ruby García continuously consults the library, not only to find entertainment books but also to fulfill the tasks required by the Business Administration career she is studying by correspondence in the National University. “I was surprised to find the book Strategic Planning for Couples, because it shows how the relationship of the couple is another business. I strongly recommend people to read it.” And she adds that entering the reading world was essential to her life because now she realizes that “one is sentenced because of ignorance.”
The library also has exhibition prams which move the books to each one of the eight patios. In that case, inmates do not use the loan software but a paper list carefully written by the librarians who rotate the cars every week in order to have a variety of titles in each patio.
Reading and Writing
In the middle of his imprisonment, Cervantes started to write the most important masterpiece of Hispanic literature: Don Quixote of La Mancha. Does the muse of inspiration arrive easily to prisons? Examples such as Cervantes, Oscar Wilde, Jean Genet and even the Colombian writer Álvaro Mutis confirm such a theory. Mariela García Aguledo’s autobiography proves that writing can have therapeutic impact in interns.
“The process understands reading and writing as a whole”, explains José Zuleta, in charge of the “Freedom in Words” workshops. “When students are writing, I encourage them to research in dictionaries and encyclopedias. For example, if they write a chronicle, I motivate them to read Capote’s Music for Chameleons.” And he adds that the objective of the workshops is not to redeem anyone. “With the project, we look for them to use literature as a tool to find themselves. In this confrontation exercise, while re-reading their own life, they assume new attitudes.”
Mariela’s case seems to confirm that theory. In her autobiography, she shows her regret.
From then on, I considered myself swine, a delinquent. My life was marked by this difficult situation because I left and allowed these people to destroy my life. Ignorance affects so many people, and this mistake more so; the most affected ones were her children and mine. Because she left this world and she’s in her rightful place now, I am in a jail serving my sentence. But the ones who are suffering because of us are the children, because they are missing that one person who is so important to them (the mother, she is dead and I have been kidnapped by justice) (sic).
Mariela just started to write the second part of her story, in which she will describe her life in prison during the next eight years. She does not care because, as she wrote in her story, when she tried to avoid her responsibility, every day the load became harder to bear. It is better to be here paying my guilt than running away. Prison is ‘freedom’. ■
The Lord of the Rings (frame)
He was no taller than a meter and half. His toothless smile was accompanied by a scar that crossed his face. He was a person who produces fear in others. His treasure: a series of rings that he uses in each of his fingers. His nickname: ‘The Lord of the Rings’.
That image, similar to Tolkien’s well-known hobbits, is the one that Angelica Manrique, volunteer in the Foundation for Books and Readers, remembers when meeting with one of the 60 inmates that were part of the “People and Stories Colombia” program, carried out by different Colombian organizations interested in promoting reading.
Manrique, along with Catalina Unigarro, developed an eight-session story-reading program in Bogotá’s District Jail. “At the beginning ‘The Lord of the Rings’ intimidated me. But as the sessions developed we started to know him and understand that he was an ordinary man,” she remembers.
The program −that has been implemented in the United States for more than three decades and which arrived to Colombia last year− has a simple methodology. A reading promoter reads a story and then asks about its topics in order to generate a dialogue that, at first, focuses on the story, but slowly turns towards life itself.
At the beginning, ‘The Lord of the Rings’ did not participate in the discussions. However, it was Julio Cortázar that got him talking. After reading “Casa Tomada”, he spoke. Irene and her brother’s story made him remember his own family. He revealed to the group that he had a wife and two children and expressed his nostalgia for not being able to be with them.
In the following session, after reading Elena Poniatowska’s “El Recado” he talked about the correspondence that he has kept with his family. He confessed that he had lied about his condition the year before, when he had been in another jail. He wrote them letters to mitigate his guilt in which he declared he was perfectly well. He felt a great desire to see them. Of course, they never visited him.
Written in Spanish and translated to English by Lucia Camargo-Rojas, and published on March 19th, 2009 at El Espectador.
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Diaper readers
In the libraries for babies children learn to establish a relation with the book spontaneously. This exercise will allow them to develop their communication skills as well as the reading and writing process with greater ease.
In a room in which shelves are no higher than one meter, fifteen babies meet every week to read books focused in their interests. As they cannot arrive alone yet, they go with their parents or nannies. The picture is more similar to a party than to a traditional silent library room.
The session begins with a guitar greeting each baby. Most of them stand up when they hear their name, because they understand that they are part of a ritual. Meanwhile, some of them crawl to their favorite books to, literally, eat them. Some others cry.
The eight to twenty four month old babies meet in the baby’s library called ‘Scarecrow Workshop’ and enjoy the “Stories in Diapers” sessions. Yolanda Reyes, the institution’s director, explains that the idea of the baby’s library was created ten years ago when in Scarecrow they began to ask themselves about the origin of reading in children. The answer: a baby starts to read when he is in his mother’s womb.
Therefore, the relationship between the child and language –which is not limited to words but is extended to music, art, or film–, is carried out in a spontaneous way. That is why, the first step of babies in “Stories in Diapers”, is to arrive to the library and crawl to their favorite book. They could read from left to right, from right to left, sit on the book, or eat it. Anything goes!
Indeed, “when children are listening to music, singing, drawing or talking with their parents, they are reading,” assures Yolanda Reyes. “Their first stories are nursery rhymes that involve body movements and physical response.”
“Thanks to international studies, the benefit reading has for babies that have been stimulated since the womb has been demonstrated. These children developed language, and reading and writing skills easily,” explains Marcela Rey, reading promoter in the children’s room at the Virgilio Barco Library. She is also in charge of the program “I read with my baby”, guiding parents to accompany their children in the reading process.
Children’s Libraries all Over Colombia
Supported by the hypothesis that children’s reading and learning processes develop easily when they are babies, the Colombian Institute of Familiar Welfare (ICBF for its acronym in Spanish), along with Fundalectura, have developed the project designed by the Scarecrow Workshop “Party Reading”. Its purpose is to implement pedagogical tools through babies’ libraries.
In this case, babies’ libraries have been introduced to educational centers. A close relationship between learning and reading awareness has been created. However, the purpose is for children to consider both reading and books “a game more than an academic tool” in the words of Gloria Bernal, Fundalectura’s assistant in formation projects.
The program “Party Reading” has equipped more than 1130 kindergartens, and ICBF’s nurseries with baby libraries. It has also trained teachers to open a space for reading in their academic program. “We have changed the idea that reading only starts when children are in first grade,” assures Andrea Victorino, Fundalectura Comunication’s coordinator.
Meanwhile, in the Scarecrow Workshops, at the beginning of the “Stories in Diapers” session, babies go to their favorite book and “sign” (doodle) a paper as they borrow a book and commit to returning it eight days later. ■
Written in Spanish and translated to English by Lucia Camargo-Rojas and published on December 18th, 2008 at El Espectador.
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What is life? What is death?
Philosophy for the dying
A therapy that left the academic areas and installed itself in hospitals.
A woman of just 26 years old has been diagnosed with AIDS and feels anguished; a woman has been struggling for several years with a cancer that has finished her off little by little and feels no consolation; a successful businessman, who has dedicated his life to build an enormous enterprise, suddenly realizes that his days are numbered by a terminal disease. All of them knocked on the door of a philosopher, instead than the door of a psychologist or pastor first.
The approximately ten philosophers who are dedicated to this practice in Colombia, seek to rescue a labor whose starting point goes as far as the V century before Christ, when Socrates’ disciples used the famous mayeutic method that employed dialogue for attaining knowledge. The main difference lies in the fact that modern people seek that the patient adds a creative element to the Socratic therapy, which allows him or her to be able to look inside for the answers to the questions that burden them.
Hernán Bueno, director of the Filosofarte foundation, an organization dedicated to spread philosophy in daily life, has sought to take this therapy, for over the past two years, to terminal patients in the Corpas Clinic, San Ignacio Hospital and private patients.
“Why did this happen to me? What am I going to do with all the dreams I cannot fulfill? What is life? What is death?” Those are the kind of questions that begin to haunt the mind of these patients and that, when they are not answered, may lead them to want to leave their lives behind.
These kind of questions, Bueno affirms, are fundamentally philosophical questions (about the life that is at stake and the personal vision of the world) and that have been thought by philosophers for over 2.500 years. The philosophical counselor helps the person, through continuous dialogue, to see his or her own questions towards life and to clarify the answers that were already inside him or her.
“You go through life with a way of understanding it, a meaning that makes us get up every morning. A philosophical concept, in short. The crisis or philosophical question comes when that concept is shattered because you thought you had the answers but life itself has changed the questions. Then the entire horizon that you thought was solved changes, even more so, in a situation such as a disease”, explains Bueno.
This thought is shared by Catalina* who was diagnosed with AIDS five years ago: “Amidst the pain of my disease, of the anguish that life is leaving you, you look for a way out through suicide. But you feel that something pulls you so you can find meaning to all of that and answer all the questions you have”.
Counseling
Since philosophers consider that a person sees the world according to the conception he or she has of it, the counselor seeks that the person who consults him changes the idea of world he or she has and therefore its perception. In the case of terminal patients the conceptions of life, death, time, hope, miracle and finite are dealt with, as they are severely touched by their condition. In general, as Bueno states, these patients “tend to think that their time is running out and are angry because they will not accomplish most of their dreams”.
The counseling is made through a series of questions and answers between the counselor and the patient and take last for two sessions minimum up until a maximum period of a year and a half, as explained by Victor Murillo, doctor in Philosophy and teacher at the University Foundation Luis Amigó in Medellín and who has practiced philosophical counseling for more than ten years. Still, he clarifies that the therapy does not aim to cure the individual but that he or she is capable to find the problem inside him or herself.
“Sometimes the belief there is regarding death makes it so hard to bear” states Bueno. That is why, in the middle of therapy, the counselor mentions the thought of ancient philosophers such as Socrates who, when drinking his poison, said: “Only ignorants fear death because, how will I fear the unknown? It would be like believing that I know what I do not know”. Or the wise words of Epicurus: “Why think about death if when I am here, she is not and when she arrives, I will be gone?”.
The counselor demonstrates the patient how his or her questions are not unique, because other people had tried to solve them years ago. “You say to them, look, Schopenhauer already thought of this”, says Bueno, “which excites them greatly. In fact, there are many who reconcile with philosophy, because in their school years they had not paid attention”. All of this discussion is held in an environment of equality between the counselor and the patient, which in turn eliminates the idea of “doctor versus patient”.
The results
“Earlier this year, while I worked in the Corpas Clinic, I had the opportunity of seeing how an 86 year old woman, who had an aggressive terminal cancer, had radically changed her perspective on life thanks to the contact with the philosophic counselor”, says Rubén Cadavid, doctor at the Hospital of La Samaritana.
“At first, the woman was seen by a priest as she was very religious and she also consulted frequently with a psychologist. The cancer evolved very fast, and she was in deep depression, to the point she did not care about her own life. Besides, the pain killers were not working for her, and higher dosages had to be prescribed. She had such a negative attitude, that she stated she did not want to see another psychologist again”.
“But since Hernán Bueno began to talk with her, her character changed, she was calmer and the pain killers began to work. It was very pleasant to see how she evolved and how she finally accepted her condition”, remembers Cadavid who, after seeing the effectiveness of the therapy, decided to ask Bueno to see another of his patients, as he assures that they regain “the will and strength to live”.
Bueno also remembers how he helped a terminal patient who felt anguished because time was running out for him and he could not do everything he had planned. During the sessions he realized that they could not solve all of humanity’s questions, but what was most important was knowing that there had been some awareness for life, that every last second was well lived and that every previous instant had been overcome.
Carmenza Ochoa, executive director of the Foundation Pro Right for a Decent Death, thinks this kind of therapy is very good for the patient, because as long as the patient can solve his or her questions, he o she can die with peace and no regrets.
However, Bueno mentions that philosophical counseling is not for everybody, because it is necessary that the person, who seeks help, has sensibility to be able to think that his or her life is controlled by his or her thoughts. Also, Bueno warns, the process of philosophical counseling must be made responsibly as the counselor must make sure that the case is fit for a philosopher and not by a psychologist or a psychiatrist. It is a very important step because “these are people who are giving you their life so that you help them manage it”, he concludes.
*Name changed.
Socrates and “the art of the midwife”
For Socrates, born in Athens around the year 470, philosophy was a way of life. His thoughts are known through the texts made based on him by Plato, Xenophon and Aristotle because the Athenian left nothing in writing, as he considered his philosophy a living philosophy.
The Greek philosopher spent his days talking to anyone who crossed his path. His speaker, suddenly, was immersed in a debate if he really had a clear concept of himself or if he knew what truth and wisdom really were.
Thanks to his continuous questions, Socrates could make his speaker made a continuous reflection about himself, clearing up confused ideas and acquired new thoughts. This method was known as the “art of the midwife” or “maieutical” that, he explained, he had learnt from his mother.
When he applied his art he made that his listener realized that a person must not gorge on reaching knowledge, which is why he continually said “I only know that I know nothing”.
“More Plato and less Prozac”
The book More Plato and Less Prozac, from philosopher Lou Marinoff, one of the most recognized authors on practical philosophy, is a stepping stone for anyone who wants to dwell deeper in the world of philosophical counseling.
Published in 1999, the book reminds us that there was a time when philosophy meant something for common people and philosopher’s ideas were practiced in daily life. From this idea, Marinoff demonstrates to his readers, in a clear and precise language, how they can take philosophical arguments to the problems they face in any moment of their life.
Marinoff also takes the history of philosophy to, finally, demonstrate its usefulness as a therapy that can contribute when facing individual and social pathologies of the postindustrial world.
Philosophical Counseling
Philosophical counseling, which started over 25 years ago in Germany and the United States, proposes returning to the spirit of the ancient philosopher, a kind of “therapist of the verb” that helped people to think about their daily lives. Therefore, he worries about the problems that individuals face in their daily lives, releasing the discipline from the academy.
Currently the philosophy as a medicine has been developed by people such as Lou Marinoff in the United States; José Barrientos Rastrojo and Mónica Cavallé in Spain; Rainer Matias Holm Hadulla in Germany; Roxana Kreimer in Argentina; Ran Lahav in Israel; Hernán Bueno, Eufrasio Guzmán and Victor Jaramillo in Colombia, among others.
Written by Lucía Camargo Rojas and published on October 9 of 2008 at El Espectador.
Translated from Spanish to English by Claudia del Castillo (official translator).
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Diaper TV
The recent legislation passed in France that prohibits emitting programs for children younger than three years old, caused a stir in parents and teachers, who ask themselves how good or bad can television for children be.
There are children a year old who pay attention, in an enthusiastic manner, to each of the movements made by Dora the explorer while they walk the world along her. Some dance to the rhythm of the music of Hi-5 songs. And we can’t forget the baby that drinks from the bottle lulled by the sound of television or that watches the ads of Discovery Kids with a dumbstruck expression.
Today, children younger than three have a privilege that other generations didn’t have: programs thought and directed exclusively to them. An offer that has broadened in the last few years and that, in general, follows the format laid out by the Teletubbies, the successful British series created in 1997 and broadcasted in 120 countries, thanks to which broadcasting companies became interested in this segment and creating new shows like Pocoyó, a very curious boy who sees the world with his friends and in which some of the main elements are colors and hallucinating movements.
By 2003 there were channels that devoted themselves 24 hours to entertain children younger than three like Baby Tv. A television proposal that has kept both parents and broadcasters happy. The former because they feel some relief and security that their children are watching shows that have been backed up by educators and psychologists and the last because their rating shares have increased themselves somewhat.
However, there are some dissonant voices that stand against these series. The most radical one came from the French Health Minister Roselyne Bachelot, whom in April this year spoke against the broadcast of programs for children younger than three years of age and suggested to the parents to not let their children watch television. This recommendation became law on November 1, when the French Supreme Audiovisual Council (CSA), entity that protects viewers, forbid French broadcasting networks to edit, issue or promote programs for child audiences.
The norm also forces cable or digital television channels to inform in a clear manner that television can limit the development of children younger than three years of age, even when the shows are created for them.
What led the French Ministry of Health and the CSA to encourage this law? Their arguments are a series of studies they hired and that were carried out by pediatric doctors and experts in child behavior, in which it is noted that before three years of age interchange with others and stimulation are key for children’s growth and must not be replaced by television. The experts also argued that it diminishes development in pre scholars’ and favors passiveness, language setbacks, agitation, sleeping and concentration disorders, as well as screen dependence.
This investigation is supported by several copies of the magazine Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine of 2006 that confirm some negative effects of television, such as the relation between the increase in the number of hours a child spends watching his favorite shows and the risk he or she suffers from obesity, even when the apparatus is just turned on.
Is TV the enemy?
Such a decision taken by the French government generates some doubts about if children’s television is so damaging that it must be suspended. According to Rafael Vásquez, child psychiatrist and teacher in the National University, “in France they created the law because they assure that television affects child development, which is hard to prove in an experimental manner. Besides, they took a scale according to an ideological study, which is, according to what they believe and they assumed that everyone should stick to that”.
For Liliana Anzola, preschool coordinator of The Victoria School in Bogotá, it is not so easy to take these kind of laws to a practical level because television occupies a very important place in children’s daily activities. On the other hand, Martha García, psychologist of the aforementioned school, says that in some way she understands the decision taken in France as parents turn away from their children and let them watch television without worrying for what they could be learning.
“Although I don’t share the decision, I understand it was a sort of ultimatum. However, I think that before creating a measure so radical some kind of work would have to be done with schools and parents, where the latter are shown how the problem is not if television itself is harmful or not, but their responsibility surrounding this practice”.
This is a stance shared by Sandra Vernaza, director of the Cometas kindergarten, who explains that children believe everything they see, included what is shown in programs that are specially designed for them. That’s why it is fundamental that the child watch television accompanied by a responsible adult, who can resolve his or her doubts and make sure that he or she is watching programs fit for the age range.
The problem, according to this group of teachers, lies in the fact that in our country parents work late hours, forcing children to watch television, as there is no adult that encourages them to pursue other activities. So, “the bad thing is not television, but the surroundings in which the child is being raised”, states Vásquez.
Katerine Moreno, counselor for the communications board in the Ministry of Culture, however, believes that the responsibility not only lies in the parents but also in the producers, who must make sure to offer entertainment to the children with an educational content. This has produced that they “are careful when making shows for preschoolers, because they are aware of the possibility television gives for reinforcing learning. That is why all series try to stimulate children’s senses”.
It’s just a matter of time
Psychiatrist Rafael Vásquez is quite clear when affirming that he does not consider that television affects child development, as it “does not produce advances or setbacks in the child, it just entertains him”. However, he does state that what has been proven is that children eat more when they are watching television series, which heightens the chance they will suffer from obesity. So for him it is vital that parents, in addition to verifying what shows do their children watch and commenting them with the children, establish a time limit for watching television that, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics, must not exceed two hours per day.
For Juanita Gómez, communicator and mother, parents must make children alternate other activities with television. “I let my children watch television and then we go to the park. Sometimes, it’s them who approach the door so that I take them outside”.
One thing that is certain-in spite of the controversy that has been generated in the French community by the governmental prohibition to broadcast children’s programs, Colombian experts assure that this is not the best way to handle the situation, because when a child is forbidden to do something it is very likely that she or he will find a way to do it anyway.
That is why they agree that parents must be the ones who decide if they turn TV into a friend or foe. “Only if they take the time in which to analyze and check what the children are watching, they can turn this media into a tool good for their development”, concludes Anzola.
Written by Lucía Camargo Rojas and published on November 13 of 2008 at El Espectador.
Translated from Spanish to English by Claudia del Castillo (official translator).
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Artistic Schools
Successful examples of how education combined with arts can be an adequate route to form tolerant, creative and critical children.
Dance, music, theatre, gastronomy and ceramics have been generally elective courses at Colombian schools. These subjects do not usually have a privileged position academically. However, new alternatives show how “artistic education contributes to develop basic abilities because they promote critical, creative talent, and communication skills,” in the words of Minister of Education, Cecilia María Vélez, have been implemented in Colombia.
El Espectador consulted four of the 24 schools that have been implementing innovations in artistic education and that were used as an example to elaborate the document “Pedagogical Orientations for Artistic and Cultural Education”, previously presented in Cali by the Colombian Ministries of Culture and Education.
Stitching for Grief
When Rosalba Cano had to decide on a topic for her Master’s degree in Arts in the Fine Arts Institute of Medellin (2000) she remembered an episode of her childhood. One day, she went to look for a neighborhood’s friend and she found that she was being mourned. She decided to pay tribute to her friend by doing her paper on “Suits for Grieving”, in which she speaks about how Colombians have become accustomed to death.
Rosalba commented the episode to her students at the educational institute ‘Merceditas Gómez Martínez’, where children from the Pablo Escobar neighborhood attend. She narrated to them the pain and anger that her friend’s death produced. Then, the students started to tell their own stories on mourning. This is how an activity in which young people share their pain and happiness began, while they use the needle and the thread to sew pictures and personal appreciations on their notebooks. The process is a pretext for them to release their pain, find their space, and mend their lives.
Don’t Hear-Just Dance
Two years ago, the District Educational Institution of Santa Marta, which only accepted deaf or partially-hearing handicapped children, began to admit students who can hear. However, the new students started to show behavior and knowledge-acquisition problems.
Luz Estela Sánchez, a teacher from the school, had managed her hearing- handicapped children to dance by imitating videos through repetition and vibrations that came from speakers placed on the ground. This activity improved the youngsters’ self-esteem. That is why Sánchez and Rita Laberes, another teacher, decided to implement dance as a pedagogical tool for the students of the institution. The results have been more than satisfactory. Children who can hear and those who are deaf dance at the same time while they promote a tolerant environment, improve their attention levels, and acquire tools to learn new things.
Art a la Carte
Fifteen years ago, an innovative pedagogical proposal was born, implemented in the educational institute ‘Juan Miguel de Ozuna’. The initiative responded to the needs of displaced young people who had drug and family problems and who lived in peripheral neighborhoods of Santa Marta. The project was known as “oral culture as a pedagogical tool”.
“Hunger can be killed through art,” assures Gabriela Orozco, one of the project creators, who explains that artistic activities based in Santa Marta’s oral tradition were developed after investigating what the children’s interests were. Dance, gastronomy workshops, music, painting, theatre, and storytelling are some of the subjects that are being taught. Children also share doing activities such as the selling of fish croquettes and fried plantains, which are prepared by the students.
Theatre for Everyone
At Jaibaná Gymnasium in Piedecuesta, Santander, theatre covers all areas and all students. The script is the conducting point of a year activity that ends with a one-hour play. In the performance, kindergartens to seventh grade students have an important role. Art begins with the creation of the instruments, and also with the composition of songs and choreography, and ends with the stage design and wardrobe.
At school, art is a tool that demonstrates how tolerance and respect are possible. The play not only includes students from different ages, it also features a handicapped girl, two children with Down syndrome, and one with autism. Each one contributes to the play with their own interests and skills, helping their self-esteem and sensitivity.
Teachers in Favour of Art
These four teachers have dedicated their work to promote artistic and cultural education among their students. They are convinced that it is one of the few areas in which all the necessary competences of children are articulated, from the creativity and critical sense necessary to develop a project until its implementation. It is necessary to be organized, tolerant, sociable and communicative to fulfill that goal.
That is why Rita Laberes states that “art is not only an entertainment tool for students, it also improves their concentration and tolerance levels. For example, after dancing, they are calmer and more willing to study.” ■
Written in Spanish and translated to English by Lucia Camargo-Rojas, and published on October 9th, 2008 at El Espectador.
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Stimulating one of the brain hemispheres allows people to develop artistic abilities
Drawing with the right side
Pablo Angarita, Arts master, gives lessons in the Chicó Museum in Bogotá, so that people of all ages can create their own art works. An activity frequented mostly by retired women.
If you always wanted to paint but were frustrated by comments like: “that is not a cow, that is a house,” and because of that judgment decided to quit, it is good to know how scientific knowledge on the brain has contributed to demonstrate that anyone can draw.
Pablo Angarita’s (Art Master) lessons that are given in the Junior’s room of the Chicó Museum demonstrates it. Ten retired women attend to this learning space called “Drawing with the Right Side” once a week, for two and a half hours.
“I did not draw anything,” explains Constanza Monsalve, who has taken the class during a year, while she shows a painting of a flower pot with two paintbrushes inside. “Saying that I painted a doll produces laughter in me, because I had never painted anything”, says Silvia Caicedo, who has just taken three classes, and who, helped by a mirror, can now draw figures.
How can these advances be made? Angarita thinks that is necessary −as the National University teacher, Santiago Cárdenas, used to tell him− “to be a Martian”. In other words, it is essential to shut down the left side of the brain, the one that is responsible for the verbal and practical side of things.
In these workshops, Angarita looks for shutting down his students’ left side in order to help them to appreciate the object only through its shape. Once they fulfill this requirement, they start to see differently, an ability that allows them to develop new skills. That is why Maria Teresa Monsalve, who has taken the workshops for five months, confesses that she “was not capable of holding a pencil. But I found an ability that I did not know that I had”.
In order to reach these results, it is necessary to begin from the idea that everyone has the capacity to mimetically draw an object. The only thing that she or he needs is to awaken the right side. The process starts with exercises: drawing lines and outlines. Then, there is the perception of space, light and shadow. Even though the process of learning how two draw never ends, Angarita believes that a person can draw an object in three months.
Right or Left?
Since the eighties, scientists have been interested in describing the functions of the different parts of the brain. Researchers such as Roger Sperry, Nobel Medicine Prize winner in 1981, have shown how each side of the brain has focused in different cognitive tasks.
Doctors such as Michael S. Gazzaniga have studied people that have undergone brain separation surgeries. Thanks to those researches, they have found that the left side is in charge of the cognitive activities (the logic side) and the language functions, while the right side is in charge of shapes, colors and relations.
All You Need is Will
“‘Drawing with the right side’ is part of a series of activities which are coordinated by the Andante Group, whose purpose is to promote proud elderly spaces,” explains its manager, Claudia Posse.
Angarita began teaching Art history at Andante, but he proposed to open a course that would stimulate the right side of the brain. Andante accepted the idea because they wanted to show elderly people that they still have much to learn.
Amidst the ruckus of his students, Angarita warns that there are no age limits to begin this process. “All you need is will.” ■
Left handed artists (frame)
Left handed people (whose right side is predominant) have more facility to develop their artistic capacities. Examples of this are Albrecht Dürer, German painter; M.C Escher, Dutch painter; Henri Fuseli, Swiss painter; Matt Groening, North American cartoonist; Paul Klee, Swiss painter; Leonardo da Vinci, Italian painter; Michelangelo (ambidextrous), Italian painter, sculptor and architect; Edvard Munch, Norwegian painter and Rembrandt van Rijn, Dutch painter.
Written in Spanish and translated to English by Lucia Camargo-Rojas, and published on July 31st, 2008 at El Espectador.
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When night closes
When night closes (Cuando sierra la noche)
Luz Peña Tobar
Villegas Editors
Written in Spanish and translated to English by Lucia Camargo-Rojas, and published in 2006 at Piedepágina Magazine, No 8.
Written by Lucía Camargo Rojas and published in 2006 at Piedepágina magazine, No 8.
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Ulysses syndrome
Ulysses syndrome (El síndrome de Ulises)
Santiago Gamboa
Seix Barral
Written in Spanish and translated to English by Lucia Camargo-Rojas, and published in 2006 at Piedepágina magazine, No 7.
