“In the suburbs of Havana they call a friend my land or my blood. In Caracas, a friend is my oven or my key: oven, source of good bread for the hungers of the soul; and key… “Key, in the sense of a key,” Mario Benedetti tells me. And he recounts that when he lived in Buenos Aires, in the time of the terror, he carried a keychain with five keys that weren’t his: five keys, for five houses, of five friends: the friends who saved him.”
With this quote, taken from the Book of Embraces by Eduardo Galeano, the meeting in Rome of a renewed ICBIE Italy closed on the 12th of October. The “embrace” of Galeano was the celebration of friendship, the key to enter the house of somewhere else, the keystone under which we gather, the clef that marks the new musical score of the ICBIE group in Italy. The great assembly, that saw the participation of many new faces and energies, was conducted through the Pedagogy of Games, a method born and thoroughly tested in Uruguay and proposed specially for the occasion by two representatives of the Liscia Association. The game permitted the reassembled group to get to know one another and rebuild ties, favoring the dynamics of team building and above all the elaboration of workable proposals for various new ideas.
The setting for the event was the Spin Time Labs, a collective set up in an experimental living project in a building occupied by 160 families, with the intent to reconvert, re-qualify and reopen community spaces. From the gathering of 21 participants the following proposals emerged, divided into three areas:
– Area of Educational Formation
1) Photography in schools:
WHO: ICBIE + Partners
WHERE: Project in the public schools in the city of Fiumicino
WHEN: 2014-2015
2) Communitary Participation Project
WHO: ICBIE + Liscia Association, La Mancha Center (experts in Play, Uruguay)
HOW: Project to be financed
WHEN: Awaiting public announcement
3. Historical/Political/Legal Courses
WHO: ICBIE + Artefando Association
HOW: Production of chalk/clay objects – Fund raising concerts
WHEN: 2015 Brazil/Italy
4. Creative Laboratory – Art Play for reading (children from 6 to 12 years)
WHO: ICBIE + Artefando Association
HOW: Production of objects in Chalk/Clay
WHEN: By 2015
5. Optimization of the Leonardo da Vinci Library – ICBIE Salvador
WHO: ICBIE + AIB + Sponsor
WHAT: Basic Library Economics courses for children
WHEN: By 2015
6) Italian for Foreigners Course
to be defined
– Area of Events and Musical Initiatives
1) Exchange: Italy-Brazil concert season
WHO: ICBIE Salvador + ICBIE Roma + Conservatory + School of Popular Music + University
HOW: Start the process of fundraising in Italy; inviting Italian musicians to play in Brazil
WHEN: Italy, end of 2015 – Brazil, 2016
2) Festival of Emerging groups, on the theme of mixture
WHO: ICBIE Salvador + ICBIE Roma + Festival of Culture (Rome) – ICBIE Salvador-Roma
HOW: Festival Pre-selection, presentation of groups, production of a DVD of the festival, Travel Prize with concerts in Rome and Salvador for the two winners
WHEN: By January, 2015
– Area of trips to Brazil
1) Monthly intercontinental virtual meetings
WHO: Lars, ICBIE – Roma – Salvador
HOW: 3 meetings to learn how to use virtual communication instruments, in the AOSR (American Oversees School of Rome) computer lab; max. 15 people
WHEN: By January, 2015
2) Formative Exchange Trips for groups of adolescents (over 18) Italy Brazil
WHO: Cristina + Paolo P. + Francesco + University
HOW: Fund raising dinners/events/auto-produced craft markets at the Spin-Time Labs + Creation of an online data base of people/places for hospitality
WHEN: July, 2015
3) Italian, French and English courses at ICBIE Salvador:
WHO: Federica, ICBIE
WHAT: Creation of a schedule for volunteers at ICBIE Salvador
WHEN: March/April, 2015
4) Parl-ARTI, Laboratories of Artistic Communication in the Streets (Italy-Brazil)
WHO: Loona, ICBIE + partner associations
HOW: Participation in Maker Faire + Partnership creation to produce the contemporaneous laboratories in Italy and Brazil (Graffiti, language schools in the street, labratories of creative recycling.
WHEN: June, 2015.
———————-
The date has been set for the next big event. On November 14th, we will celebrate our traditional ICBIE year end party, to present and finance the planned activities, along with collecting new official members of our association. For the occasion, the founder and artistic director of ICBIE Salvador, Pietro Gallina, will be present.
Happy new beginning, ICBIE Italia!
Lars, Cristina, Loona
