PROJECTS
ARTS VILLAGE PROJECT THE KUMASI SYMPOSIUM BAMAKO SYMPOSIUM ON THE ARTS OKLAHOMA SYMPOSIUM: FOREIGN MISSION METHODS TODAY
Character Inn Conference Center, Oklahoma City, USA
Date: March 21 - 25, 2011
Click here for more information.This Project brings together architects, artists and others from diverse places for knowledge sharing and skills exchange through engagement in art+architecture residency to design, build and test-live in low budget, quality structures constructed with earth and other materials from the environment.
Tapping Local Resources for Sustainable Education through Art
Venue: Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Kumasi, Ghana
Date: July 31-August 14, 2009Done in collaboration with the Department of General Arts & Art Education, it dealt with the issue of sustainability in the 21st century to enable visual arts education developments in Ghana, because one major challenge in the postcolonial time is that best practices and resourceful programs often fail to roll out nationwide and to be sustained. The symposium was a follow-up to our 2008 Project Earth to Art in Nungua near Accra.
BAMAKO SYMPOSIUM ON THE ARTS:
Tapping Local Resources for Sustainable Development in the 21st Century
(2ND Bamako Summer School)
Venue: L'Université de Bamako/ University of Mali, Bamako, Mali
Date: 22 -30 July, 2010The project is in collaboration with Balani’s Association, Bamako. With the practical acts and theoretical presentations we aim to promote critical dialogues on the best practices around the world on how the arts feed civilizations in hope that we will generate new initiatives to boost human capital development in Mali in the 21st century.
OUR ARTS VILLAGE CONCEPT
The Arts Village initiative is a part of our ongoing project of Tapping Local Resources for Sustainable Development in the Sub-Sahara. It is a community arts mission designed to create cross-cultural spaces for residency program, community-based projects, and workshops/symposia for creative persons worldwide, and skills development center for young people of the nearby communities. Project is open to Open Source Share with emphasis on low budget-quality work, and the creative process. From an aerial view, a model arts village would look like a big piece of land art with many parts that entail earth architecture, and environmental sculptures and in between, would be creative persons from diverse cultures.
Typical Arts Village will draw on Western and non-Western traditions in designing and building the parts that include a Multipurpose Arts Center, Residential Courtyards, a Cooperative Kitchen, a Courtyard for arts studios, a Studio School for the young, and a recreational space with earth under the feet and other materials from the environment. Our idea of sustainable development includes our cooperative structure, maximum use of local resources, openness to international volunteers, and technology transfer by working with younger and established creative adults to equip them with life-long skills and knowledge. The project’s role is a “pump-priming” one: to get the arts village concept adopted in a particular zone by developing and training the younger ones, then to gradually move on to another suitable area to develop another arts village.
Simply stated, what we are into is a mixture of life-long education, multi-disciplinary and cross-cultural collaborations. One reason for this is because some of us in the project are either artist-teachers, or practice internationally. Project is therefore an Open Source platform for everyone who can participate, regardless of place, age or gender.
Join us! Show the world how to re-invent social spaces with artists and designers in mind!
DESIGN+BUILD-AND-LIVE-IN PROJECT
Our ARchiTecture (art+architecture) Residency Programme in the Ashanti Region of Ghana welcomes artistic persons in the fields of architecture, engineering and the arts that include visual arts, literary arts, performing arts, design, new media/ film production, arts history, arts criticism, arts education, arts administration and curatorship, and emerging others to apply for residence. Length of residencies is usually from 1 month to 12 months. The applicant’s project plan may be to design and build dwellings or non-dwellings out of earth and other materials from the environment. The architecture participant will be assisted by local master builder and local laborers, if necessary.
Individuals and collaborative groups may also submit proposals for research, public art or community arts project under our International Visiting Residency programme.
Mbacké NIANG
(Architect, Researcher and Consultant in Dakar, Senegal)Specifically, the International Visiting Residency is for researchers, observer-participants, interns, volunteers and other independent practices at the cost of $200 / €125 / £99 a week to cover local guide and housing. However, you need to bring your own bed sheets, toiletries, medicines, music, mosquito net and other personal comforts. Dinner by cooperative kitchen in which we all work together in sharing the planning, cost, shopping and cooking has always worked for us. It has been more of a dinner party, a time to come together to sample national cuisines, have fun at the table and bond as a community. Each participant will receive a diploma certifying your participation and Associate Membership in Nka Foundation.
What does participation fee/tuition NOT cover? Budget for your air fare, local transportation, visa costs, and other personal expenses; for example, a generous Onsite budget might include about $15 USD per day for gifts, foods, and drinks. We can help the candidate research and apply for grants in order to cover the above expenses. For Registration, Work Trade, or Group discounts contact us.
