- From May 11th until November, the Arts Education Week (#SEA2020) invites all children and youth in Chile to collect and gather experiences, stories and objects under the project Transforming the Present, Dreaming of the Future.
- We call upon cultural spaces, universities, day-care centers and schools, and other organizations to register with the #SEA2020 web portal and share their digital programs.
Although the actual physical activities of the Arts Education Week (#SEA2020) have been postponed until November 19th and 20th (usually its held during the week of May 11th), it is an opportunity to convey the importance of Arts Education in the context of this pandemic, and reassess the possibilities provided by the Arts to visualize the human and affective dimensions within the educational process.
It is an invitation to consciously observe the environment and reflect upon the present; to collect or gather experiences, stories and objects on what we are currently living through – and how we manage to cope, resolve and transform. Collections can be recorded through oral storytelling, brief texts or images; it can be recorded through a logbook, notebook or scrapbook; through photographs or audiovisual products, among other types of formats.
By transforming our present and dreaming about our future, we can also contemplate about that dreamt future in a moment of exchange during the month of November, a moment in which children and youth can once again meet and share their collections, creating a collective cartography of their unique experience during this time of confinement. These collections may be exhibited at schools, day-care centers, or in collaboration with other educational spaces, such as cultural centers, museums and libraries.
The project proposes guidance to initiate an affective collection from home. It is not merely a recreational exercise so that children and youth can explore their own environment, their home, and simply to gather objects and collect experiences, but rather contemplates on the reflective and expressive dimension that seeks to visualize their ideas, preferences, interests, thoughts and actual concerns that may be shared on social media through hashtag #TransformarElPresente and tagging the Week of Arts Education on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
About the Arts Education Week
It is an international celebration hosted by UNESCO that seeks to “raise awareness by the international community regarding the importance of Arts Education; and the promotion of cultural diversity, intercultural dialogue and social cohesion”. Arts Education contributes in rethinking the pertinence and relevance of education in the framework of the Sustainable Development Goals No. 4, and its 2030 Education Agenda.
In Chile, it is organized by an Executive Roundtable integrated by UNESCO, the Ministry of Cultures, Arts and Heritage, Ministry of Education, University of Chile and Balmaceda Arte Joven. This is the stage of schooling where the development of the arts and creativity play a crucial role in generating freer individuals that are more aware of their environment.
The web platform invites day-care centers, educational establishments, universities, and cultural spaces and other institutions to form part of a community of exchange, where it is possible to publicize activities, news and pedagogical materials, and is meant to be a place where different stakeholders from national and local cultural activities can meet.