 Artwork by a primary school student showing their family and home in Alampil, Sri Lanka. 2016 We're deep into planning with our fourth project in Sri Lanka. This year, we'll be in Colombo working with women and children on an arts, healing and visioning project. Stay tuned for more information.
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Today we focus on the newest member of ArtsAction Group, Desireè Irene Moore. Desireè has over a decade of experience teaching and is a certified fitness instructor and certified Trauma informed Breathwork Facilitator. Based in Southern California, she's bringing mindfulness and movement through dance, and tumbling for girls and boys ages 3+ through her Gifted Tree Dance and Gym program. Gifted Tree offers weekly enrichment at early education centers, after school programs, community centers and other workshops. Desireè is also involved in community events promoting mental health + wellness. You can see more of her work on Instagram. We appreciate and thank Desireè for all the love and healing she brings to this world.
 UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — What does arts and cultural advocacy look like in a context of community development and social transformation? What is the role of arts and culture in the context of oppression or rebuilding after war? Those are questions that Penn State Art Education faculty member Ann Holt explores through the facilitation of community arts workshops in Suhareka/Theranda, Kosovo. See press release article here out of Penn State.
 We head back to Suhareka in the first week of March for our 2024 workshops. We'll be exploring wandering and mapping using high and low tech for the artmaking. Stay tuned here and on our social media for more details.
In preparation for a presentation on the ArtsAction Group archive for a conference on international art education histories, Dr. Ann Holt and I started playing around with creating a visual timeline. So far this is what we've designed. The more we work on it, the more we remember, see, discuss, edit... It's a work in progress. To view the timeline on Conceptboard, go here: https://app.conceptboard.com/board/ett9-qs9y-bt57-umy6-7ykm OR scan the QR code. You can view as a guest so no need to create an account.
 ArtsAction Group members Ann Holt and Cindy Maguire present Documenting and Preserving Art Education Materials from Conflict-Affected Global Contexts at the Mapping International Art Education Histories Conference at Teachers College Columbia, Thursday November 30, 2023.
Our presentation focuses on ArtsAction Group’s (AAG) archive of teaching projects and global arts partnerships. Positioning our work here, particularly in regards to Mapping International Art Education Histories, is the notion that archives are vital to countering erasures, amplifying marginalized, at-risk histories, and increasing possibilities of generating discourse in the global field of art and design education. Engaging with archives is an active process that informs teaching, research and creative practices. Archives are not simply materials about the past; they reflect lived experiences, and provoke questions relating to both historical and contemporary educational paradigms. We archive “as a way to document how we live now so that we might change how we live now. Archives are not static hermetically sealed museums; they are active commentaries about our lives” (Tierney, 1993, p. 4).  We are headed back to Suhareka, Kosovo for 9 days of making art, and joining with friends for food and the best macchiatos in the world! It's been 3 1/2 years since our last trip and we are excited to re-join our partners at Fellbach Haus Centre for Creative Education for more community arts experiences. This spring the trip will also run as a study abroad opportunity via Adelphi University. For more information about the study abroad trip you can contact study-abroad.adelphi.edu or call +1-516-877-3487. For more information about the project, reach out to us at [email protected].
 The article describes ArtsAction Groups approaches to arts and healing through our global partnerships. We focus on Kosovo and Sri Lanka in this article, sharing best practices and challenges. The journal is a special issue focused on difficult knowledges and includes several compelling articles that address teaching and learning in the arts when confronted by "histories, objects, and narratives of trauma" (Mandrona & Patterson, 2022, p. 5).
 Arts and culture is one of the most expansive modes of social transformation. Even in the face of social emergencies, it brings people together- sparking hope, life, and global connections. Our recent Routledge publication Arts and Culture in Global Development Practice provides multiple and nuanced expressions of the work of development from all over the word using the power of arts and culture. It emphasizes practice, including ethics and responsibility (towards each other) and impact (self cultivation and responsibility together). Aligning with the belief that all individuals deserve the opportunity to participate and to engage in building lives of personal value and dignity including "the right to freely participate in the cultural life of the community" (UN General Assembly, 1948), we recognize that we need each other in this mutual endeavor. It takes purposeful action with others in this work. At this moment in time, as we witness another devastating global emergency, these tenets are particularly salient.
 We've created a Spark website to share our 2017 project Utopia/Dystopia:Utopike:Antiutopike with our Therandë-Suharekë, Kosovo partners. The website shares our guiding questions, processes and final work with children and youth.
We've put together a book of our work in Sri Lanka from 2016 – 2019. Starting with our introductory arts and healing workshops in Alampil to our most recent work incorporating STEAM with socially engaged art. Check it out here.  ArtsAction Group: Kosova presents a visual narrative documenting our 2019 project, Transformimi: Dikur, Tani Dhe Nesër/Transformation: Past, Present, Future in Therandës-Suharekës, Kosovo. We share a brief background of our collective before moving into the Kosovo partnership and context. We finish with our 2019 project created on the 20th anniversary of the NATO bombings. Through this shared work we reflect on the impact the arts can have in transforming communities with a focus on the role of socially engaged art and healing in fostering capabilities and human development during rebuilding. We hope to shed light on the possibilities inherent in our shared work, always defined by the relational aspects of environment, identities, and experiences of all (Desai, 2019). You can see the book here or a companion website here.  Partnerships We want to thank Jillian Fishback, a high school student and owner of JFdesigns. Jillian brought together her passion for designing shoes with her passion for helping others. Seeking a way to make a difference in the world through the arts, she created a line of custom shoes with 15% of the proceeds which went directly to ArtsAction Group. The work is beautiful as is her commitment to children and youth globally. If interested in ordering a pair of these custom drawn shoes or if you want to learn more, please email [email protected], and follow @_jfdesigns on Instagram to see the work. Thank you Jillian for partnering with ArtsAction Group.
 In 1995, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in the midst of Europe, the ongoing and systematic crimes reached their abhorrent heights through the crime of genocide committed against the population of Srebrenica, a small town in Eastern Bosnia. In less than a week more than 8000 Bosnian Muslims were exterminated solely for being of different ethnicity and bearing different names. The Srebrenica genocide was committed on the very threshold of the European civilization, with the entire international community observing, and the world hardly caring at all.
Located in a small town in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Srebrenica genocide was committed exactly fifty years after the liberation of Auschwitz when the world promised “never again.” Today, we remember this genocide and recognize the patterns of discrimination that still, everyday, lead to unspeakable crimes all around the world. In 2004 Tarik Samarah photographed a mother from Srebrenica standing and looking at the photo depicting Anne Frank and her sister. The girls in the photo have their backs turned and the focus of the mother is not apparent to the observer. The European contemporary history and its restless narratives are symbolically united in this photograph. Knowing how easy it is to be pushed beyond the limit of what is considered civilization, it becomes impossible not to ask who will be observed next and whom will we remember in the unknowable future and in the unfathomable present? Will there be someone or is someone already there to observe our backs in the same solemn manner? #RememberingSrebrenicaGenocide © Tarik Samarah Gallery 11/07/95, Memorial Centre Srebrenica Inspired by the removal of the ruins of the houses destroyed during the war in Kosovo in 1998-1999. Refki is an artist and arts educator from Theranda/Suhareka, Kosovo and one of ArtsAction Group's long-time partners.
Teaching Idea: Find Inspiration in your Dreams - from Art Institute of Chicago Educator Programs4/26/2020  Joseph Cornell Untitled (Hôtel de la Duchesse-Anne), 1957
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 
In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic our lives have been altered in ways that none of us could have imagined. More than one billion children are impacted by the closure of schools (Sites of Conscience). While physical distancing continues, we at ArtsAction Group are finding ways of engaging virtually with individuals and communities through the arts and education. We offer our website as a resource. If we can be of service, we invite you to reach out via our contact form or social media. Stay tuned for news, activities and more on this site AND our social media sites. In loving kindness, the ArtsAction Group team.   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.
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