Comunication Team
The combination of art with the power of youth has the potential to transform our Latin American region through play, creativity and solidarity. This is one of the conclusions made during the third day of presentations at the First Latin American Youth and Community Arts Meeting in Guatemala. For five days this event brings together more than 200 young men and women from all over Latin America.
One experience was presented by the Argentinean, Inés Sanguinetti, of the Latin American Network of Art and Social Transformation (founded in 2003), who mentioned to participants that “the most important element of networks is collective participation in spaces of political incidence in order to generate public politics”.
Sanguinetti presented videos of four cases that exemplify the work of the network which brings together 65 organizations (all “full of young people”) from 11 countries.
A dancer by profession, Sanguinetti shared the experience of Escuela Profesional de Circo La Tarumba (Lima Peru), Asociación para el Sistema de Coros y Orquestas (SICOR) of Bolivia, the Artistic Collective Caja Lúdica (Guatemala) and the Fundación Crear Vale la Pena of Argentina, where Sanguinette is based.
“Art has always created community, for that reason art can transform the world” said the presenter who emphasized the importance of “working with the link between those who are excluded and those who are not”.
What is the transforming force of Arts? What is the role of social organizations within the development of Public Policies?, and What is the potential of a platform of Latin American Youth? These were questions produced by a practical exercise used by Sangunetti with the young participants.
The presenter said that networking is a “brotherhood of bodies, our hearts and our minds”, and emphasized the importance of “uniting the body, mind and spirit”.
The network is “strengthened by group exchange, by different ways of thinking and by participation” pointed out Sangunetti, who also said that “within this recognition, the most important element is the construction of networked territories and viewing art as an entity of social transformation beyond formal education”.
Manifestarte in Public Spaces
Tomas Castella shared the experience of Manifestarte, a project of free expression and recuperation of public spaces in Guatemala.
The presenter explained how this initiative rescued the “Cerrito del Carmen, an important space that was abandoned, now recuperated, not just for us but also for other groups”.
“Manifestarte began in 2003 during an historical event know as ‘Black Thursday’ when, due to the high level of political violence in the streets, artists decided against remaining silent and, informally, this project was born”.
Castella said that the vision of the project is that “art is a central axis of human development” and for that reason “we try to take art to the very people who have less access to it, those who are excluded because of a lack of resources”.
The project has a small recording studio and some audiovisual equipment “with which we are trying to support people with proposals of a non-commercial nature” said the presenter while emphasising the need to “reclaim the role and dignity of artists”.
Mafi Reyes, another representative of Manifestarte, said that an important element of the project has been going out in the city centre streets with young people. For example, each month they organise cycle rides during the night with more than 120 participants “with the aim of loosing their fear”.
Guanared: Synergy, Happiness and Tenderness
Olman Briceño, from Guanared, of Costa Rica, presented the experience of ‘networking’ and said that “synergy, happiness and play, as forms of creative living, within contexts of exclusion, genocide, natural disasters and social struggle have activated process of exchange that propose new models of working collectively that visualize the Central American region as unity in diversity”.
“It’s through permanent ‘artistic events’ and shared agendas that artistic-cultural networks can transcend borders, create links and promote a sense of territoriality and an identity that can help realize the population’s potential through their virtues: the spiral and the magic of our encounters and re-encounters” expressed Briceño.
Briceño said that the difficult situations in Central America such as the assassination of companions in Guatemala or the Coup in Honduras “impact heavily in our networks” and generate “social cohesion and promote a culture of peace” at the same time as “activating the participation and consciousness of the citizen”.
The presenter promoted a Central American unification and integration by means of amazement, connection, closeness, commitment, play, tenderness, ritual and ancestral respect.
Olman Briceño shared the experience of Guanared as “our mutual belief in arte and culture as a personal need that we always share with those by our side”. He also expressed that “Guanared places the central responsibility of work in the motivation of those prepared to live creatively and, within this world of possibilities, achieve their dreams”. He concluded the presentation by mentioning the values of the red: synergy, happiness and tenderness.
Traducción:
Jon Ottley
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