Joseph Cornell Untitled (Hôtel de la Duchesse-Anne), 1957
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Like the work of his Surrealist contemporaries, Joseph Cornell's art was often connected to the world of dreams. Based on what you can see in this Cornell box, write a short story that begins with this line: "Last night I had the strangest dream ..."

Explore more writing prompts:https://www.artic.edu/visit-us-virtually/get-creative-at-home/creative-writing-prompts

Explore the educator resource packet: 
​ https://www.artic.edu/collection/resources/educator-resources/47-educator-resource-packet-untitled-hotel-de-la-duchesse-anne-by-joseph-cornell

​Who are the artists that inspire you in your community?

The body mapping art project can begin with students viewing a series of artworks created by traditional and/or contemporary artists who combine visual imagery with text to explore personal/cultural identity. The artists we’ve worked with in the past include Mark Bradford's merchant poster series, portraits by Sharin Nashat and paintings by Pala Pothupitiye. Local artists and popular culture are great places to go to for ideas. The website Art21 also has many artists to refer to for artmaking projects.

After viewing examples of other artists who work with text and imagery, students complete the I Am Poem (template in English/Tamil attached). This poem becomes inspiration for the visual parts of the body map art. After completing the poem, have students turn over their poem. Create 4-8 squares by folding the paper. In each square have them sketch visual symbols based on the poem. 

On a large piece of paper (you can glue smaller pieces of paper together to create a large body-sized canvas) have a friend trace the outline of the student's body. You can also work small and focus on, for example, an outline of a pair of hands. Inside the outline of the body or hands, begin to design the art project using imagery and text informed by the poem. 

Materials can be as simple as pencils and markers to mixed media that includes paint, college and other materials. See the Body Mapping Projects on our website for student examples from Algeria, Kosovo, Sri Lanka and the USA. 

For a more in-depth process around Body Mapping and Healing, see Body Mapping for Advocacy Tool Kit by Shirley Gunn, out of the International Coalition Sites of Conscience 

We're in the planning stages for the 10th anniversary of our partnership with our Kosovo team. This year we'll be joined by undergraduate students from Adelphi University. Pictured here is the municipal's museum in downtown Teranda/Suhareka. We're planning on again transforming the space, inside and out, with ephemeral projection art designed and produced by the children and youth at the Centre for Creative Education/Fellbach-Haus. 

We were joined in Sri Lanka by students from the University of Hertfordshire's Art Therapy MA program. The team used a variety of media to express their intrapersonal experience while listening to music.  Taking inspiration from songs requested by members of the public, the work conveys powerful and complex emotions, visualisations and connections that music can elicit. The links between people elicited by the project extended wider still, with proceeds from the sales put towards the psychosocial project in Sri Lanka, giveing people in the conflict-affected country of Sri Lanka the opportunity to experience the therapeutic benefits of art making. 

Our catalogue documenting our most recent project in Kosovo. Interested in getting a copy? Please let us know. 

We've returned from Theranda/Suhareka, Kosovo where we worked with 35 children and youth to create a series of interactive artworks. We had several email conversations along with video, photos and document sharing with Refki Gollopeni, teaching artist and our partner in Theranda. Based on this sharing, Refki began preparing the students for the work prior to the workshops. For the younger studnents they viewed one of our favorite Makey Makey music making videos as well as artists making interactive work such as Federico Muelas' Sonic Graphite 2B and Christine Sun Kim's Game of Skill 2.0

With the younger students we focused on incorporating the Makey Makey to add interactivity into the artmaking. Refki called upon a former student, now designer, to get the younger children's styrofoam hand-forms cut using laser cutting technology. The hands became the sculptural elements further designed and embellished by the students using mixed media. The work with the younger students was held over two days for a total of four hours in the studio. Check out our short video about the work. 

The projects we produce with the Centre have several aims and goals, depending upon student and community needs. Recently we've been balancing play and skill building by providing students with opportunities to approach familiar media, such as drawing and painting, in new and different ways. With over half of the population estimated to be under the age of 25 years, we want to encourage critical as well as creative thinking in support of their place in a growing global creative economy.

We're heading back to the Centre for Creative Education, Fellbach-Haus in Suhareka, Kosovo. In 2015 we introduced the concept of  STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art and math) through a drawing machine workshop that utilized small DC motors with the exception of one piece created from a windshield wiper motor from an abandoned car! This year we're moving deeper into the knowledge and skill base for this work with the inclusion of Arduinos, E-Textiles, prototyping with breadboards, 3D printing, working with sensors and more. We're hoping to reproduce, in part, Federico Muelas and Terry Dane's Sonic Graphite 2B (SG2B). Stay tuned for updates. We'll be at the center for the week of March 20th. 

March 2016 we travel to Sri Lanka to work with children and youth in Mullaitivu, Northern Province of Sri Lanka. We are partnering with the Jesuit Centre for Social Concern. We will be working at Alampil Roman Catholic Maha Vidyalayam. Since the end of the war in May 2009, rebuilding the lives of those affected by the wars is a priority of the Jesuits in their mission in Sri Lanka. ArtsAction Group joins them in this important work. ​

The Round Table: Role of Education & Youth in Preventing Urban Violence & Countering Violent Extremism was held at UNHCR headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland on October 21, 2015. ArtsAction Group Co-Director Cindy Maguire attended to learn more about the work of INEE, it's partners and possible ways ArtsAction Group might continue to work with INEE.  The event brought together members of the INEE's Working Groups, as well as external participants. Presentations and dialogue addressed ongoing research and programming related to these areas as well as how youth are and can be involved in peace-building. One area addressed that resonates with us was the role that sports, arts and culture can play in educating children and youth towards empowerment and transformation in conflict affected spaces. For more information on INEE and the roundtable check out these links:

• ​http://www.ineesite.org/en/events/details/round-table-role-of-education-and-youth-in-preventing-urban-violence-and-co/2015/10/21
• on.fb.me/1hNAhHD 
• Search for Common Ground: https://www.sfcg.org/
  

We've produced our end of year  2014 ArtsAction Group newsletter shared with our growing list of partners and supporters. It's been an active, productive and exciting year. Click on the link to view the newsletter on-line. 

We have only to read the headlines to see how pressing the need is for bringing these kinds of activities to our children and youth.

Thanks to all who have supported our efforts in creating, producing and sharing the arts with children and youth in conflict affected environments around the world.

ArtsAction Group is excited to return to ARTifariti this year. Teaming up with the Shared Roots Project, a creation of Terrence Ross at Adelphi University, we will work with interested families to create profiles of an ancestor - using words, videos, or any other art form. Our team will help families organize their memories, photos, objects and more into a celebration of their ancestor.

These stories and images will be uploaded to SharedRoots.net, to be seen by people around the world. As Enas Elmohand, a member of ArtsAction Group puts it, "history runs like a brook through the rich forest of time, negligent of the songs of individual birds." ArtsAction Group and the Shared Roots project will work with the Sahrawi community to add the songs of their ancestors to the recorded symphony of our collective history. 

Interested people and families should contact organizers for the ARTifariti festival and/or come to the festival to share your stories. For those of you not attending the festival, Shared Roots is open to all for posting stories of our ancestors. Check it out and add your story!

We've just returned from Woodstock, NY after the opening of our first ArtsAction Group exhibition in the US. We had lots of folks coming through the gallery, viewing the work, and asking questions about our work. On exhibition were several large scale body maps created by children and youth from Kosovo and the Brentwood Residential Center (which is a facility for girls involved in the juvenile justice system). We also had photographs documenting 6 years of our work, in Kosovo and last year's projects in the Western Sahrawi refugee camps, as well as a viewing of a film illustrating our work in both of these communities, as well as animations created at Fellbach-Haus this past spring.

A special thanks to Beth Humphrey, artist and arts educator, who facilitated this installation. We look forward to growing the partnership with students and teachers in that region of NY State as well as connecting them, through the arts, to the Kosovar and Western Sahrawi communities.