ArtsAction Group
  • Home
  • About
    • About Us
    • Why the Arts?
    • Equity, Diversity & Inclusion
    • Key Personnel >
      • Core Team
      • Teaching Artists
      • Art Therapists/Art Therapy Trainees
  • Projects
    • Regional Contexts
    • Kosovo
    • Sri Lanka
    • USA
    • Western Sahara
    • Motif in Saharawi Camp Smara
    • Outside My Window I See
  • Donate
  • Participate
  • News & Updates
  • Publications
  • Partnerships
    • Profval Partnership

ArtsAction Group, ARTifariti and the Western Sahara

11/9/2013

1 Comment

 
PictureEnas Elmohands with children from Camp Boujdour.
ArtsAction Group has just returned from Camp Boujdour, Western Sahara as participants in ARTifariti: International Art Encounters in the Western Sahara. Members who traveled to Camp Boujdour, about an hour outside of Tindouf, Algeria, were Enas Elmohands, Emma Exley, Cindy Maguire and Rob McCallum. The focus of ARTifariti 2013 was the creation of the Sahrawi Art School located in Camp Boujdour, in the Sahrawi refugee camps. The new school is "an open and participative learning space for the Sahrawi community in the camps." and works with an understanding of the arts as a form of personal expression, resistance and transformation in response to the human rights abuses by the Moroccan government in the occupied zones. ArtsAction Group is a signatory on a manifesto that outlines a range of supports we and other universities and cultural organizations from around the world will provide in solidarity with the community. 

Picture
As part of the festival we introduced PackH2o, an innovative solution to water transportation and storage that relieves physical burden and protects against contamination. The Ministry of Water and Environments of *SADR with the support of ArtsAction Group and PackH2o, are conducting a needs assessment for a future roll out. Two of the packs were silkscreened by Sahara Libre Wear and featured in the ARTifariti fashion show!

Picture
ArtsAction Group held two arts workshops for children at the local primary school. The first workshop was for the students' to share their stories about water through drawings and a large scale collaborative mural. We shared a water story mural created by a group of students from the Allen-Stevenson School in New York City with the Sahrawi students.  In this part of the world water, as one student put it, is the gift of life, as problems with access and quality are a ongoing and growing concern for the camps. For the second workshop balloons were introduced as a medium for creating sculptural headdresses. One of our aims was to introduce the students to art making with non-traditional materials, incorporating skill-building activities through directed play. After much laughter, experimentation and popping of too many balloons the group came up with beautiful, fanciful head dresses. Children were spotted wearing their headdresses throughout the camp center later that evening.

We are deeply moved by the experience and the hospitality extended by ARTifariti and the entire Sahrawi community. More updates and sharing of the project will be forthcoming! Stay tuned. 

*ARTifariti is a project of the Ministry of Culture of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic SADR and the Association of Friendship with the Saharawi people of Seville AAPSS.

1 Comment
Miles link
12/29/2020 11:44:27 pm

I enjoyed reeading this

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    October 2022
    May 2022
    August 2021
    July 2021
    May 2021
    September 2020
    June 2020
    April 2020
    January 2020
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    February 2018
    April 2017
    February 2017
    April 2016
    February 2016
    October 2015
    August 2015
    April 2015
    January 2015
    September 2014
    July 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013

    ArtsAction Group

    For the most up-to-date information regarding our work and projects, check out our website and social media sites. We will be using this space to comment and post projects, activities and conversations about our work. 

    Categories

    All
    Conferences
    Human Rights
    Installations
    Kosovo
    Packh2o
    Partnerships
    Performing Arts
    Resources
    Syria
    Western Sahara
    Workshops

    RSS Feed

Locations

Picture

ArtsAction Group

Assuming the idea that a role of education is a mode towards freedom, perhaps the biggest challenge for educators in the visual arts lies in dissolving the boundaries that prevent the most vital ingredients of a meaningful arts education curriculum: love, empathy, and the willingness to learn from the Other. ArtsAction Group has over a decade of experience facilitating these kinds of arts initiatives within a sphere of respect, open dialogue, and long-term commitment" Dr. Ann Holt 2018

Contact Us

    Subscribe Today!

Submit
  • Home
  • About
    • About Us
    • Why the Arts?
    • Equity, Diversity & Inclusion
    • Key Personnel >
      • Core Team
      • Teaching Artists
      • Art Therapists/Art Therapy Trainees
  • Projects
    • Regional Contexts
    • Kosovo
    • Sri Lanka
    • USA
    • Western Sahara
    • Motif in Saharawi Camp Smara
    • Outside My Window I See
  • Donate
  • Participate
  • News & Updates
  • Publications
  • Partnerships
    • Profval Partnership