Countryside

Sonidos de la Tierra – Community and social development through music

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http://youtu.be/cmp5E9gEYvU

Sonidos de la Tierra (Sounds from the Earth) is a project for children and young, created by Luis Szarán,through the formation of music schools, musical groupings and cultural associations, it facilitates the shortcut to the musical education to more than 3.000 participants of scarce resources, in communities of the Paraguayan countryside.

Sonidos de la Tierra, is based on the concept of “education through arts” and began in 2002 in 18 towns, with support from the AVINA Foundation. Today, with alliances with more than 100 other local, national and international institutions, both public and private, the program reaches over 72 communities throughout Paraguay.

In Cateura, one of the many communities where Sonidos de la Tierra has music schools, started a project whose aim is to build musical instruments out of garbage, this city is one of the poorest in Paraguay, and a great amount of garbage is sent daily there.  People who work in this project say that they aren´t “looking for good musicians, but for good citizens”. Last month, the Recycled Instruments Orchestra from Cateura performed at the Entreperneurship Forum in the New Economy during the Rio+20 summit.

To know more about the project, you can visit http://www.sonidosdelatierra.org.py/

Cultura21 is a transversal, translocal network, constituted of an international level grounded in several Cultura21 organizations around the world.

Cultura21′s international network, launched in April 2007, offers the online and offline platform for exchanges and mutual learning among its members.

The activities of Cultura21 at the international level are coordinated by a team representing the different Cultura21 organizations worldwide, and currently constituted of:

– Sacha Kagan (based in Lüneburg, Germany) and Rana Öztürk (based in Berlin, Germany)
– Oleg Koefoed and Kajsa Paludan (both based in Copenhagen, Denmark)
– Hans Dieleman (based in Mexico-City, Mexico)
– Francesca Cozzolino and David Knaute (both based in Paris, France)

Cultura21 is not only an informal network. Its strength and vitality relies upon the activities of several organizations around the world which are sharing the vision and mission of Cultura21

Go to Cultura21

Call for Submissions: Horizons – Arts in Nature

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This post comes to you from Cultura21

France - The Horizons – Arts in Nature event will take place between the 16th June and 16th September 2012. It is the 6th of a contemporary art event based on short-lived visual works of art.

Managed by the Sancy Tourist Office, the call for projects involves the creation of 11 works of art in the Sancy Massif located in the heart of the Massif Central in France and exceptionally within the theme park Vulcania.

The works of art will be put up in places where they highlight the surrounding countryside’s qualities. Discovery trails and Art workshops for children are held around the art piece in order to mediate their content.

The event aims at developing contemporary art in the area, allowing professional artists to contribute their sensitivity to the area. Furthermore it is supposed to reinforce the growth of tourism in the Sancy Massif by addressing so-called cultural tourists as well as people passing through.

The event is open to artists with a strong national or/and international artistic experience and to young talents, who just or recently – less than 2 years- graduated from art school.

To download the application form for 2012, description of the territory and listing of the sites please go to the website of the event:
www.horizons-sancy.com (section: ESPACE PRO)

For further information about the territory, please visit the Sancy website: www.sancy.com
Contact:
Magalie Vassenet
E-mail: m [dot] vassenet [at] sancy [dot] com

Deadline for reception of the applications: Monday 19th December 2011, to the address below:
Horizons – Rencontres Arts Nature – Office de Tourisme du Sancy
Allée du Lieutenant Farmont – 63 240 LE MONT DORE

Cultura21 is a transversal, translocal network, constituted of an international level grounded in several Cultura21 organizations around the world.

Cultura21′s international network, launched in April 2007, offers the online and offline platform for exchanges and mutual learning among its members.

The activities of Cultura21 at the international level are coordinated by a team representing the different Cultura21 organizations worldwide, and currently constituted of:

– Sacha Kagan (based in Lüneburg, Germany) and Rana Öztürk (based in Berlin, Germany)
– Oleg Koefoed and Kajsa Paludan (both based in Copenhagen, Denmark)
– Hans Dieleman (based in Mexico-City, Mexico)
– Francesca Cozzolino and David Knaute (both based in Paris, France)

Cultura21 is not only an informal network. Its strength and vitality relies upon the activities of several organizations around the world which are sharing the vision and mission of Cultura21

Go to Cultura21

Thinking about the “use” of art at times like these

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Some while ago I did an interview with Siân Ede, Director of Arts at the Gulbenkian Foundation. This week I finally got around to transcribing it and posting it up on the main arts and ecology website. She was particularly smart when it came to addressing the objectives of the RSA Arts & Ecology website here:

People think there must be a use for art in issues around the environment – and we believe there is – but quite often they misconstrue what that use is.

Yes. Artists never use the word “use”. What Kant says about art is it’s purposiveness without a purpose. And it is a response to the world in any number of interesting different ways because all the artists are looking at it slightly differently. So there is a fundamental problem for me, and I think for the RSA too, and for the Arts Council, about asking artists to make things that have a utility, that are issue-based, in the jargon. You’ll get people like Cornelia Parker saying “as an individual I am very moved by the politics and the ethics

Cold Dark Matter: An Exploded View, Cornelia Parker 1991

Cold Dark Matter: An Exploded View, Cornelia Parker 1991

of environmental issues, but I can’t do that in my art.” It’s not how it works. Because the arts are much more complex and do not have a particular purpose.

Obviously there will be some artworks that have a particular purpose, and interestingly the attitude to nature that we hold enshrined because of Romanticism, means that we are now aware that nature is no longer the nature that it was. Romanticism came about in response to the industrialisation of the countryside. Now we know nature is no longer the sublime, the transcendent, the beautiful, the God-given. It is tainted. It is sad. It is ending.

You can’t say, “Hail to thee, blithe spirit!” any more like Shelley did, without being aware that the lark is in decline. If you read the Shelley again you read it with this new awareness and you bring this awareness to it.

Is there a problem then with a project like Arts & Ecology – or is there only a problem if you think about it in terms of “use”?

Oh, subtle question. I mean, you could say, arts and sport, or arts and economics, couldn’t you? And arts and anything? In fact my book Art and Science is part of a series of books that are art and anything… Art and Medicine, Art and Sex, and in a way you’re just making an interpretive selection. “Ok, let’s look towards all the art that looks at the environment, and look at environmental issues.” Which is different from being an agenda given to artists. Of course, how can you not make art about the environment? Nobody’s isolated.

So Arts & Ecology, or Art and Science, gives you a pair of critical glasses through which to look?

Yes. Yes it does.

Go to RSA Arts & Ecology