Other activities

Special attention will be paid to educational projects linked to the event, designed to familiarize the public with the various types of contemporary art. The Biennial will seek attendance by critics, curators and art historians from other parts of the world, to give lectures and run workshops and be potential disseminators of Caribbean visual arts at regional and international level.


Workshop by Rene Francisco Rodriguez (Cuba)

In 2012 the artist and teacher René Francisco Rodríguez from Cuba will present a workshop titled: "Con el mismo sabor de boca : mano a mano”. Duration of the workshop will be 5 days, from morning till evening. Tentative date March 2012)

Basis
The workshop will introduce participants to one of the modalities of contemporary art that relates the creative processes with social fragments that exist in a community or cities today. The workshop is based on the experience of what is now called social work, art of social integration and contextual art and similar projects artist Rene Francisco Rodriguez has developed in Havana and other parts of the world. (See also http://www.art-havana.com/franciscorene)
The workshop will start with general theoretical considerations and will offer instruments and tools.
An important part of the workshop is being with the participants in the environment in which they will work, either interacting with others or simply interacting with the surrounding area. It is important to note that this exercise exceeds the regular boundaries of a classroom, and that different parts of Aruba and its people are taken as objects of study. This way a dynamic process will be created in which the mobility of the group in relation to different spaces on the island in their urban enclaves will be very important. This goes for the interaction with situations, events and people, pedestrians and subjects that inhabit the spaces, to build and modify the image of the daily urban and social environment, and identity of Aruba.
This way the workshop will generate/create spaces of co-living for teacher and students, aspiring to share the daily routine, breakfast, meals, leisure time and other activities, for at least most of the time possibly all through the 5 days of the experience. That is to say, the interpersonal relations between the members of the group will develop by means of the creation of intersubjective situations while setting the classroom as a community action.
At first, the participants will bring various tasks/requests/ideas which will aspire the making of an ‘artwork’. Leaving aside the ancestral idea of the artist as a demiurge solitary individual, participants will work in pairs. The couples will be formed based on the selection of the speaker given their interest in collaborating in the realization of these requests. The work partners will discuss the assignment, requests and will advise each other. The goal of this exchange of ideas is to put together the criteria of viewer-receiver and through these, shape the purifying filters in the process to the construction of the artwork.
The lines along which participants will work during the workshop will be defined by the expectations of the group. The goal of the teacher is to work with the requests and make these viable. In a variety of projects, with DUPP (Desde Una Pragmática Pedagógica) or solo, the artist Rene Francisco has been able to successfully satisfy the needs of people from different neighborhoods, communities and social environments, like for instance La Casa Nacional, Cuadros por Encargo Gratis, Agua Benita. DUPP (Desde Una Pragmática Pedagógica) is a name given to pedagogical projects developed by René Francisco Rodríguez since 1990 at the ‘Instituto Superior de Arte de La Habana (ISA)’ as an alternative to educational programs that prevailed at that time. This “Pragmática Pedagógica” (Pedagogical Pragmatism) expanded as a course subversive to the current university canon, establishing new teaching relationships/methods never before perceived or practiced in the context of art education in Cuba. Without an pre-established program, no teaching fees, no classroom or permanent place, diluting the distance between student and teacher, a work format emerged based on the action and reflection and dialogue from group experiences. A new format, generated by the creative process based on the requests of the students and the public they were working with. Its purpose was to create a sort of college experience on the street which enriched the training experiences of young talents. It is remarkable how this educational process unfolded by its own logic towards a practice of what we now call social work. Which most participants of this project have been able to achieve through the years as creative individuals. The teacher himself has deepened his own experience practicing this method of art education. It is worth mentioning that some of the artists, who have been part of the various editions of DUPP, are amongst the most renowned Cuban and international artists today. The teaching method used with DUPP is similar to the proposal of this workshop in Aruba. This experience can serve as an inspiration to those involved to realize similar projects, taking into account their specific objectives and contexts of life and artistic production.

Necessary equipment:
1. A working space.
2. A computer (the participants can use their laptops).
3. Camera.
4. Video camera to document the workshop and cassettes/memory cards.

Download the text in Spanish