"Youth work eco-system” was the first project I took part in this year. This Lernlabor and Logos NGO conference in the Alpujarras (Spain) was a collective space where members of both organisations and people who collaborate with them gathered together for exchange of ideas between organisations, also some outdoors activities and some time for just being with each other. The past year I collaborated with both organisations with some projects including training courses and art workshops such as: "Reforesting minds. Artistic practices for ecological restoration and collective resilience", "Co-creating Remedies.Collective Art for a Shared Present " and "Sharing is Caring". And this year we have more to come, check on this blog for more news. I share some images of the outdoors collective drawing/painting we had during those days. This simple but profound collective exercise of representing the landscape around us in a piece of paper was just an attempt to capture the moment between oneself and the landscape. Those images represent a quiet moment of that deep connection which I love profoundly as it shows the power of creating despite any previous experience or knowledge. It is a form to learn more about ourselves, about Nature and the natural transformations. “The relation between what we see and what we know is never settled. Each evening we see the sun set. We know that the earth is turning away from it. Yet the knowledge, the explanation, never quite fits the sight.” ― John Berger, Ways of Seeing
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Sharing is Caring, Oct 2022, Poznan (Poland).
Sharing is Caring was a workshop run by Seila Fernández Arconada as part of the series of workshops organised with Logos NGO. This intergenerational collective gathering was an invitation to mums and kids to collaborate through art. The aim was to create a safe space where participants would be able to express themselves. We used different art tools to explore emotions taking care of creating a peaceful and inclusive atmosphere. During the time together we began with some storytelling where participants were able to introduce themselves with stories, a net of stories intertwined with each other, having the shared situation of being refugees due to war in Ukraine. We continued experimenting exploring different techniques, like drawing and painting, where adults and kids were able to collaborate with each other. The process of being with each other was the most important. Thank you to Logos staff and volunteers, in particular to the amazing translator Daryna Martynenko and all participants for their incredible attitude and motivation to create together.
Itinerarios XXVII showcases the work of the eight artists selected in the last call for the Botín Foundation’s Art Grants: Armando Andrade Tudela (Peru), Lucía Bayón (Spain), alfonso borragán (Spain), Gonzalo Elvira (Argentina), Seila Fernández Arconada (Spain), Assaf Gruber (Israel), Joan Morey (Spain) and Ana Santos (Portugal). Their projects were selected from a total of 428 applications from 42 different countries by a jury made up of the artists, María Bleda and Carlos Bunga (previous beneficiaries of the grants), and the curators, Orlando Britto and María Inés Rodríguez. The exhibition culminates the course of this grant, reflecting the extent of artistic interests and practices. Each project on display must be understood as a work in itself, as a unique invitation to get involved in the languages and networks that the artists have been building over the past two years. They are joined by the context in which we live, permeable to the current economic, ecological and social crises, whilst committed to the creation of new alliances and representation strategies to come up with other potential formats. Floating Studio, When the River Sounds Like the Amazon River (2019–2022) is an artistic project inspired by the relationship between human beings and water, in the most important freshwater reserve on the planet: the Amazon River. This project suggests a ‘collective artistic expedition’ as artistic method framed within the itinerary of the river’s course, from its origin in Nevado Mismi (Peru) until it reaches the ocean at Belém do Pará (Brazil).
Starting with an expedition to the source of the river, Floating Studio continues as a route in cargo and passenger boats ‘cargueros’ as shared spaces suspended in the river’s flow, its times and experiences as well as collective encounters in territories near the river banks: meetings or stays with individuals and groups, like scientific research centres, universities and artistic and community centres. Therefore, these boats become floating studios, places of interaction and creation based on the extended time where the goal is to research about the river whilst being on the river. This search to ‘be more river-like’ reflects on narratives and plural forms of understanding relations between bodies of water, their tensions and their connections. With their fluidity, rivers are bodies that not only carry ancestral stories, memory and knowledge but also contain emotions and epistemic and ontological symbolism . They are a common good. However, these water sources, and even more so the Amazon River, are in constant tension, impacted by a global, colonial and patriarchal system which makes them a victim of their own life potential. Its name: Amazon. In Spanish, the female name of the Greek myth was given as a result of its colonial discovery and represents one of the epistemic impositions on its biodiverse essence in the name of progress and development. Fictional narratives that sustain hegemonic imaginaries, silencing voices and forms located in territories where plural rivers are experienced, which remain today through the broad flow of History. This project addresses the process as a means of eco-social investigation based on exchange, a dialogue of different kinds of knowledge to work with the territory in order to look for transversal questions and emergent relations arising from this diversity of encounters and artistic languages. From the local to the global, they are nurtured from exchanges that go beyond what may be represented in the exhibition space, some of them are tangible, others intangible, meanwhile there are some made visible, others remain invisible in the places where they took place. The materiality of this project is approached from a variety of techniques; however, sound is a very important element in this project. In this case, the soundwaves travel, inhabit and go across bodies of water, each human body that (co)habitates alongside the creations presented in the exhibition space: Drop by Drop Water is Drained is a sound creation situated in the course of the journey in the Peruvian Amazon. This composition includes documentation and sound exploration based on different collective experiences, including workshops with youth, ‘concerts to be more river-like ’ and other experiences along the way. The artist has used hydrophones and other recording strategies to collect sounds. This work presents a sound experience to ‘be more river-like’, portraying the movement through the corporal based on the experience in the Amazon River. Amazon, Between Reality and Fiction is a reflection situated in the context of return and the final presentation (Spain). Due to the interruption of the route by the pandemic in 2020, the project was redirected while seeking to close a narrative cycle that would be meaningful for the investigation and its ethical principles. Therefore, this sound creation uses a Western musical genre: opera as an approach for reflection. This ‘fictionalised reality’ give voice to some other silence histories bringing important questions to Europe from a reality in real emergency. The choice of the opera La Gioconda, with music by Amilcare Ponchielli and libretto in Italian by Arrigo Boito reached this investigation because it was the opera that opened the Teatro Amazonas in Manaus in Brazil’s Amazonia on 7 January 1897 in the midst of rubber fever. The Teatro Amazonas is and represents a colonial imposition which is tangible in Amazonia even today, hence the importance of using this musical piece. The extract chosen for this work reproduces the opera’s original score. However, the lyrics were rewritten by the artist. These intensely profound lyrics connect the context of their original creation to today, winding down the Amazon River, the guardian of its shores, the witness of what happened then and what happens now, becoming memory while containing ancestral stories of life and death. The writing process has many points of collaboration along the way. It comes from the Amazon River and in its first presentation leads in the Guadalquivir River, accompanied by people from the Amazonia who collectively did a ritual of ‘payment to water’ to continue to weave relations between bodies of water. Since 2019 I have been researching and materialising the project Floating Studio, when the River sounds like the Amazon river, a collective journey on the river Amazon, looking for becoming more river-like. A part of the result of this immersive experience is presented in Centre Botín in Santander Spain.
The opening exhibition of Itinerarios XXVII has been very special, first of all to 'conclude' this watery journey but second to share these unique moments with such incredible artists I am honored to share exhibition with: Gonzalo Elvira, Armando Andrade Tudela, Lucia Bayón, Alfonso Borragán, Joan Morey, Assaf Gruber and Ana Santos. This exhibition is going to be on till late April, you are all invited to visit it. I am incredibly excited to be back in Spain for the opening exhibition of Itinerarios XXVII, a collective exhibition of the Art Grant I received in 2019. It has been a few years delayed where a lot of things have happened, so I am very glad this life cycle is now able to further expand in the presentation of an installation representing the project Estudio Flotante cuando el río suena a Amazonas.
More updates to come, for now some official information about the exhibition with all the artists and excellent works I share space with. This collective mural titled as “Co-creating remedies” created together with participants from various backgrounds and the Spanish artist Seila Fernández Arconada and the polish artist Krzysztof Gruszczyński. This collective design has been done by participants of the workshops “Co-creating Remedies. Collective Art for a Shared Present” of this project designed by Seila Fernández Arconada, participants are from different ages from Ukraine and Poland. Thank you to all the artwork authors and mural painters. The initiative is organized by the NGO Logos as part of the project "Poznawaj with logos.ngo". More information and many more photos including results of participants in the following link: http://www.seilafernandezarconada.net/co-creating-remedies.html dziękuję, Дякую, thank you to all who took part in Co-creating Remedies creative process, without all of you nothing would ever have happened,..
the magic of collectivity creativity... Open call for participation on the workshop Co-Creating Remedies. Collective Art on a joint mural. During this workshop we will create a collective mural together, it is an action in the public space where everyone is welcomed, I will be running this activity together with the Polish artist Krzysztofem Gruszczyńskim and we are very excited to take this opportunity for a collective experimental approach. Thanks again to Logos NGO for believing in my work and the shared commitment to keep contributing by creating such Art spaces where continuos work can be done in these uncertain times we are living. This workshop is part of the ongoing collaboration with Logos NGO. PL
Zapraszamy do wspólnego tworzenia muralu na szkolnej ścianie - Szkoły Podstawowej nr 78 w Poznaniu wraz z polskim artystą Krzysztofem Gruszczyńskim i hiszpańską artystką Seilą Fernandez Arconada. Mural jest symbolem nowej teraźniejszości, w której Polska i Ukraina jednoczą się dla wspólnej, szczęśliwej przyszłości każdego kraju oraz wspólnie ją tworzą, krok po kroku. Mural powstanie w symbolice jedności, przyjaźni, pomocy i wdzięczności. Projekt muralu powstanie podczas warsztatów kreatywnych, które odbędą się 2 i 3 listopada. Szczegóły -> https://fb.me/e/2dodQnGBK 6 listopada wspólnie stworzymy mural od 10:00 do 18:00. Podczas malowania poczęstujemy Was smakołykami. 10:00 - 14:00 Pierwsza grupa uczestników 14:00 - 18:00 Druga grupa uczestników Oficjalna prezentacja muralu odbędzie się 7 listopada o godzinie 13:30. Liczba miejsc jest ograniczona. Rejestracja przez formularz do stworzenia muralu przeznaczona jest w pierwszej kolejności dla uczestników warsztatów. Aplikuj -> https://fb.me/e/2dodQnGBK Jak dostać się na miejsce? Adres: Żonkilowa 34, 60-175 Poznań https://g.co/kgs/wuyGKj Inicjatywa jest organizowana przez organizację pozarządową Logos w ramach projektu „Poznawaj z logos.ngo”. UA Запрошуємо на спільне створення муралу на стіні школи Початкової школи #78 в Познані разом з польским художником Кшиштофом Грущинським та іспанською художницею Сейлою Фернандез Арконада. Мурал являється символом нового сьогодення в якому Польща та Україна єднаються для спільного щасливого майбутнього кожної з країн та разом створюють його крок по кроку. Символов єднання та дружби, допомоги та подяки. Проект муралу буде створений під час творчих воркшопів, які відбудуться 2 та 3 листопада. Подробиці —> https://fb.me/e/2dodQnGBK Ми будемо спільно творити мурал з 10:00 до 18:00. Під час малювання ви можете пригоститись смаколиками. 10:00 - 14:00 Перша група учасників 14:00 - 18:00 Друга група учасників Офіційна презентація муралу відбудеться 7 листопада о 13:30. Кількість мість обмежена. Запис через форму на створення муралу першочергово для учасників воркшопів. Подати заявку —> https://fb.me/e/2dodQnGBK Як доїхати до локації? Адрес: Żonkilowa 34, 60-175 Poznań https://g.co/kgs/wuyGKj Ініціатива організована позаурядовою організацією Logos в рамках проекту «Poznawaj with logos.ngo”. |
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