"Once the wall was painted and I saw how concentrated the children were,
I realized what painting can do."
Guillermo Hernán Aranda Cortes
This
initiative was selected to showcase the capacity of a teacher to transform
conventional art education into a collective action of social and esthetic
educational intervention, in which secondary-school-aged adolescents from
marginalized areas, many of whom have been mobilized by the demand for free
public education in Chile, can find a sense of belonging and approach an understanding
of other realities.
Collective
work in the plastic arts and, most particularly, in muralism – an artistic
expression painted directly on one or more walls – provides them not only with
technical and esthetic tools for interpreting and expressing their realities,
but also with the possibility of acquiring a sense of responsibility and
commitment by shared learning with other schools and locations where
interventions based on the plastic arts take place.
In
this experience, the teacher-pupil relationship is based on creativity and on
an ethical position that entails giving in order to receive, allowing both the
construction of an understanding of esthetics and of the language of plastic
arts that can be socialized and applied to the realities of other social groups
and the creation of a social commitment that is part of learning for life.
OBJECTIVES
- To boost the creative development, identity, and sense of belonging of the youth and participants of the Quilpué Collective.
- To promote fair opportunities for access to different artistic disciplines and to build a sense of innovation through muralism.
- To encourage young people to reflect on the character of their community and to support them in building collective solutions to the problems they face.
- To open a forum for dialogue among artists, young people, teachers, and the community in general.
- To incorporate curricular and extracurricular areas into the academic arena through the teaching of techniques for drawing, painting, muralism, and mixed media.
The experience was begun by a teacher at the GuillermoGronemeyer Technical College in early 2006, who decided, along with a group of
secondary and high-school students, to launch a collective experience based on
the creation of community murals. Over time, the participating students and
teachers evolved into a youth group that produces mural paintings, graffiti,
and stencils to support artistic education in the schools of Quilpué commune,
which in 2011 adopted the name of the Chilean painter Roberto Matta in homage
to the centenary of his birth.
The Collective links the young people to their school
and their community, and has been incorporated into the formal and nonformal
curriculum at different institutes of education. Through collective work, it
fosters, develops, and builds ties with the community, the city, the province,
and the country. The participants are encouraged to interact, criticize, and
accept their own cultural, social, and artistic interpretations, to overcome
prejudices, and to establish mutual respect. At the end, they organize group
exhibitions of the original sketches and drawings used to produce the murals,
in order to share their creative processes with the community.
TARGET AUDIENCE
The initiative targets young people between the
ages of 14 and 22 in the province of Marga-Marga, 5th Region, Chile. At the technical college where it is based,
98.1% of the young people live in conditions of poverty, in areas with high
levels of violence and low social expectations. Many of them have difficulties
in their academic development. During 2009, the initiative attended to 20
young people and 5 adults. In 2010, that total rose to 30 young people and 10
adults and, in 2011, to 60 young people and 20 adults. The indirect
beneficiaries of this initiative are the one hundred and thirty thousand
(130,000) inhabitants of Quilpué, the three hundred thousand (300,000)
inhabitants of Valparaíso, and the one hundred and fifty thousand (150,000)
inhabitants of Viña del Mar-Alto.
ACHIEVEMENTS
Through collaborative work and the pursuit of plastic
arts as an exercise in citizenship that helps eradicate marginalization, the
Collective has managed to impact the creation of identity among young people
and training for decision-making within their community. It has also
strengthened dialogue between the community and the participating young people
and forged ties of hope and coexistence with local residents, families, and
social organizations, by sharing a specific painting project that addresses the
topics that the communities propose.
Thus, the Collective responds to requests made by
communities–working on environmental topics, sport, education, theatre,
grassroots organizations, or residents’ committees–for public interventions or “murals,”
on the walls of their neighborhoods, technical colleges, schools, universities,
or the headquarters of social or union organizations. By being actively
involved, the communities serve as the guarantors of the care and socialization
of the creative work, forging networks of solidarity and ownership.
The need to express themselves arises from the young
people themselves as they set up their “Muralist Collective,” and through their
own contacts with friends, family members, and social and community networks,
they establish a dialogue that enables them to approach different social spaces
and resolve the needs of citizen participation.
"I was invited to paint a mural, which would be my
first; we painted it at the Manuel Bulnes School, where the idea of the mural
was to give the school some color and expose the school’s children to art. "
José Hernández Bravo sheshe
THE TEACHERS
The teachers have received
professional training as visual artists. Most of them have participated in
cooperation programs in different Latin American countries, most of them geared
toward a community approach. They constantly take refresher courses and are
characterized by a permanent commitment toward the young people and their
community.
SUSTAINABILITY
The Collective carries out
its own fund raising. Through benefit concerts and donations, they annually
raise some seven hundred (700) U.S.
dollars. In turn, the communities contribute paintings, spaces (walls),
permits, and funds for the travel and meals of the muralists during the days
they spend painting.
EVALUATION
Evaluations are carried out
at the start, midway, and end of the process, using two strategies: one involves the use of focus groups, with
videos, photos, and audio to assess individual performance; the other strategy
is self-evaluation, which allows experiences, opinions, and criticisms to be
collected.
These strategies are
carried out by the participants–teachers and students–and by the communities
involved. The results of the evaluations provide feedback for future
interventions.
RISKS
The initiative identifies three possible risks that
indicate the high level of awareness that exists regarding the importance of
the proposal’s ethical dimension:
- Loss of community ties and failure by the murals to reflect the needs for which they were initiated;
- Young people dropping out of school outweighs their interest in participating in the Collective; and
- Loss of credibility in the eyes of the community and social networks.
REPLICATION POTENTIAL
This initiative has been
replicated at several institutes of education. Between 2006 and 2011, three “Muralist
Collectives” were created in the Valparaíso region (5th Region / 2009) and one
more in Quilleco, Los Ríos region (8th Region / 2011).
In the future, the
initiative aspires to formalizing its organization by legally incorporating and
having its own arena for work. It thus aspires to recognition as a Social
Youth Group, with its own legal identity, and as a cultural center where it
will be able to develop new strategies and artistic and educational disciplines
to empower, organize, and hold muralism meetings, forums, and exchange travel
at the national and international levels with other similar bodies.
Materials
PERSON IN CHARGE: Carlos Villamar Tulcanza,
Visual artist / visual art teacher. Quilpué Municipal
Education Corporation (PUBLIC INSTITUTION AT THE MUNICIPAL STATE/PROVINCIAL
LEVEL) rvallejos@cmq.cl
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