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 cmaguire@artsaction.org.

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). 

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. 

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.