Activities that took place during the Festival

Plasticine modelling workshop facilitated by the teacher Luis Alfonso Isaza Origami workshop facilitated by the teacher Jorge Herrera

Cartoon workshop facilitated by the teacher Alejandro Ortega Mask workshop facilitated by Cooperacion Renovacion

Theatre work: Education show on the theme of Identity and Diversity

Collage workshop facilitated by Deirdre WalshFace-painting workshop facilitated by the teacher Mary Luz Ramirez

October 2009Youth Arts Festival 09

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The educational institution Francisco Luis Hernandez Betancur accompanied and supported the processes of the Desearte Peace program in this project. I felt the connection with social work and the issues proposed to be a part of change, and developing processes and technical training with the students. These processes went beyond simply taking part in art activities. Through the processes they discovered a common thread, which I shall call "processes of identity", which marked the work for the year 2009.Territory was the theme for this Youth Arts Festival, where students of the School for the Deaf expressed their identity, feelings, emotions and desires. Whether the participants had a disability or not was explored, and the transition out of the bubble to endeavor to see ourselves as other program participants. The deaf participants wished to address their territory in the form of portraits, which uni!ed the group of deaf and listeners, using portraits as a way to express without words or signs. The chosen gestures, spontaneity and color in the portraits were used as channels for communicating, searching for di"erent opportunities to communicate through painting and drawing at a real-life scale.The workshops were guided by the artist Deirdre Walsh from Cork City in Ireland, who helped us to build a project, and therefore a result. This was a signi!cant encounter for the institution between cultures, particularly language, in a class where simultaneously three di"erent languages were spoken; English, Spanish, and "sign" for deaf students. This experience was very satisfying and innovative. It gave the participants a sense of responsibility and raised morale. The students and myself enjoyed the festival and the celebration of art, and the whole project left with me a sense of "integration" and "interaction", which is our goal as an educational institution.The work continues and the process remains.

Alejandro Ortega Deputy Head of the Artistic and Cultural Education.

“THE IMPORTANT THING IS NOT THE RESULT, IT IS THE EQUATION”

In my role as Teacher Coordinator in this project I had the opportunity to work with the students of the school CASD on the theme: Youth - City. This resumed an aspect that was raised long ago, observing the relationship established by students to the center of the city as their territory. These re#ections, increasingly complex, involve vital aspects such as death, violence and territorial identities.This Youth Arts Festival is a challenge to create a product of visual art. The students made small maps, which presented their daily routes from home to school and vice versa. We experimented with di"erent artistic techniques by integrating concepts and found objects.As the process of producing the maps began, the social disorder problems around the institution were re#ected in the maps. The material in the maps became a way of becoming aware of the problems and also the positive aspects of the neighborhood where the young people live.Our participation in this project increased the appreciation of contributions by young people from this institution, and gave me as a teacher in this project motivation to rethink issues and methodologies within the institution.

Professor Jorge Herrera

THE TRAVEL EXPERIENCE, THE JOURNEY AS EXPERIENCE

With the passage of time man has found in art a way to express themselves, and even tell the world what you think about what happens in everyday life. For this reason it has found its place in school, more speci!cally in the classroom, where students gain knowledge and re"ect on what they think about their reality.In the artistic experience with the program Desearte Paz and Bello Oriente College the students communicate a vision of their context through music and movement. They explored perceptions of where they live (the neighborhood), as they live and what it means to them. They developed concepts about appearance and their daily lives, how they are part of a place that is full of symbols, experiences and emotions. Bello Oriente is one of the highest places of Medellin which has view of the city, where one feels as an inhabitant to be watching the characters in this city, of which we are part. Taking as reference the place where we live as the starting point for talking about territory. YouthArt is the means and the excuse to come up with elaborate symbolization and re"ection within the classroom. The experience included exploring di#erent approaches to art and to be able contact and experience of foreign artists who come to this place. The artist was able to show us what art is like where they are from and we in turn gave feedback from our culture and educational processes. This was a great experience that created much learning in the educational community and school in Bello Oriente. Here the expression of art and ideas have freedom to become a means by which students can be projected as critical and re"ective of the society they inhabit.

Bran Jimenez Francisco Javier - Teacher Art Education

ARTISTIC EXPERIENCES IN THE DESEARTE PAZ PROJECT

The experience gained by students of the Educational Institution Priest Jose Antonio Bernal Londono resulted in commitment, innovation, recreation, appropriation, context, socialization, meetings, training, youth, and a wealth of experience....art that is alive.The proposal to re"ect on ‘Art and School Participation - Wish you Peace’ is part of the new artistic programme of Arts and Education. This programme seeks to impact the educational context by using other ways to incorporate youth arts education, enriching the experience with new techniques, re"ection of the young about their social and cultural development, development of awareness, and sharing with teachers and artists in other contexts. Most importantly the topics addressed are topics that o#er signi!cant learning and are increasingly linked more to the young people and their everyday life in an ethical and aesthetic development.

These topics include: forced displacement, abuse of women and children, inclusion of youth, deterioration and preservation of the environment, and problems in prisons. As a pedagogical strategy for teaching, the program involves a huge commitment not only to the student in training, but also with the renewal of concepts, materials, resources, and spaces. This is a permanent way to rethink their strategy and make sense of the thematic content and proposals for the school, which have originated from the needs, interests and concerns of the students. Their concerns are not only for gaining knowledge, but also of love, projects, desire, and access to opportunities.What is important in this experience fostered by the Art Gallery, is that it breaks new ground not widely available before this, and calls for political, economic, national and international artists, teachers, and especially young children to perceive, think, dream, experience and express themselves through various art forms in harmony together.

Ana Eva Hincapié and Luis Alfonso Isaza - Institución Educativa Presbítero Antonio José Bernal Londoño

THOUGHTS OF THE ART AND SCHOOL EXPERIENCE, Deseartez Paz

Through observation and representations of the environment, students from the school Merceditas Gómez Martínez addressed the issue of Sexual Diversity. They explored the relationship man – woman, looking at characteristic features that di!erentiate and create similari-ties. The students approached the subject from the perspective of everyday life, and discovered that society has made sex a taboo, and that young people should not deny their thoughts and feelings in these situations. It must also be recognized how important it is to have respect for themselves and others.

The students developed texts outlining their views on perceived sexual discrimination in their territory, school, neighborhood, city, country, and the world. They collected personal belongings that represented themselves physically, emotionally, mentally and visually. Through this process they created their own vision of what sexual identity is, and how it can be built or destroyed. It is important to highlight the support received from the teacher Piedad Posada, who addressed the questions and opinions that the students had on the subject, extending the concept of sexuality from art history to the context of how young people live today.Leah facilitated the students in the creation of two-dimensional material that was installed in the Youth Arts Festival.

Oneidis - Assistant Desearte Méndez Paz Centro Colombo Americano

SEXUAL DIVERSITY Our patrons, Saint Francis of Assisi and St. Clare of Assisi, were friends, inseparable from nature and their care for everyone. Our patrons guide this project ‘territory without borders,’ and likewise, the Desearte Paz program, opens the doors to show-case the work done in our school, the place where we formed and where we make it happen.

Seven years ago we formed a project to preserve the planet for people recycling, reducing and reusing waste. Activities like the annual period f recycling, reusing and proposing alterna-tive materials such as plastics, recycled paper, glass, lids, and packages. Year after year we collected these materials for making clothes with couture designs.

The students recognize the importance of the place where we live and want to contribute to solving environmental problems through strategies that improve the welfare of the territory of the educational community and the environment.The students wanted to visualize the school as a space that had a positive identity and a space that is environmentally conscious. The artistic group work we did to create a large-scale dress was our way to express our e!ort, passion and views on environmental issues, a topic that is carried from the Santa Clara of Assisi College to the local community. This art object was installed in the Youth Arts Festival.

Taken from the October 22 conference. Arte y Escuela Jornada Académica Festival de Arte Joven

SCHOOL - TERRITORY - SPACE

When the proposed theme of ‘territory’ was presented to the students they were interested by the idea of ‘body and territory’ and wanted to investigate a speci!c way to symbolize their identity, as the body is where they can showcase their tastes in clothing, fashion, colors, and everything that makes them special and unique, when they are free to do so. Through writing they began to investigate and develop their !rst impressions of identity. They drew their territory, capturing how it impacted them, what colors and what sounds they perceived, and who inhabited it. Then the students joined the high school subjects to the project design, as well as drawing and painting techniques. Each student submitted design ideas to re"ect the theme in their dress, hairstyle and makeup.

Irish artist, Siobhan Ross, and Cooperacion Renovacion Cultural, led by Javier Quiroz, submitted a proposal for African dance and the girls were silent, then said, "teacher, that's what we're going to dance?” At the beginning there were di#culties in coordination and rhythm and other problems with the communication because of language di$erences, but the students kept trying and succeeded.

The day of Youth Art Festival, there was a variety of rhythms, dances, paints, colors, reviews, workshops, orchestrated primarily by Lina Betancur, Coordinator of Desearte Paz, and each accompanying teacher of creative processes in the institutions. For me as a teacher-artist accompanying the group of students from CEFA was quite enriching due to the process of creating, linking social realities and the issues of concern to young people. Support for the artists and their art proposals resulted in an exploration of expressions; I consider this to be a method that requires a provocative creative process but still o$ers extensive opportuni-ties for social intervention and collaborative work.

Alba Nelly Londoño Ciro - Cultural Management Specialist Bachelor of Arts Education Arts Education Research Area arts-CEFA Professor

TERRITORY AS THE BODY

Art throughout history has had several roles; one of them is used as a means by which humans communicate their ideas. The program Desearte Paz - Arts and School created the opportunity to engage with each of the institutions and teacher coordinators in the project, and to look at current social issues through art, to have options for displaying the art, and to sensitize students to look beyond the art of decorating a space or environment.

I love art, and although I realize that my students are not artists, I want to allow them feel a little of the passion I feel. For this, I am convinced that education is another way of making art, because it must be creative, original and current. When looking at the area of arts I see it as opportunity, not only to communicate and express ourselves, but to entice others to come together. This is where teamwork starts to take o$. It is in the classroom where the work of art began, where the student and the teacher engaged in dialogue and rethinking their ideas. However, the classroom work does not end only with the thinking, sometimes you have to digress a bit and wonder what we do with all that already exists in our heads and our hearts? This leads to a brainstorm about what do young people dream of, and an opportunity to raise their awareness of individual or collective thoughts, representing what they feel. The task is not just symbolic, some young people, apart from implementing and formalizing their ideas into works of art, talk with their families and friends, trying to sensitize others to art.

The classroom, the corridor, the school playground, and the art gallery, are places to think, places to appreciate art. Above all we have approached this project with one aim: that the information is not saved or kept private, it really is multiplied so that many people can bene!t and feel on their skin and body everything that happens in your environment and your planet.Desearte Paz gives the students an opportunity to perform artistic processes. Students are not artists but have the sensitivity to create a work of art. It also takes into account the role of teacher-artist, who accompanies the artistic youth, besides being a vindication of the role of the teacher who teaches art.

Mary Luz Ramirez, Professor of Art, CEFA

CLASSROOM/ ART AND SCHOOL