Vista  nocturna  de  Medellín  

•  Since  2003  I  have  been  involved  in  educa9ve  projects  with  different  groups  of  people,  including  children,  teenagers,  adults,  students,  ar9sts  or  just  people  interested  in  the  projects.  I  have  work  in  different  ins9tu9ons  as  well  as  independent  projects.  

•  As  an  ar9st,  I  am  also  interested  in  the  other,  so  I  like  to  know  myself  more  through  the  others,  my  work,  my  drawing.  

•  In  2004  we  developed  the  first  mul9disciplinary  ar9s9c  project:  “La  Miscelánea”.  The  idea  is  to  communicate  through  art.    

Mi  taller  en  taller  7,  Medellín  Colombia  

•  In  2006  Medellín  City  Council  invited  “La  Miscelánea”  group  to  develop  a  project  which  showed  what  was  going  on  with  the  young  people  who  was  sleeping  and  living  in  Medellín  streets.  

•  We  talking  about  the  topic  for  two  months,  thinking  about  the  poten9al  materializa9ons.  The  first  aSempt  was  to  work  with  an  organiza9on  which  worked  with  those  teenagers,  but  in  fact,  it  was  not  a  good  idea.  We  have  different  perspec9ves.  They  did  not  take  into  account  what  was  agreed  before,  so  we  decided  not  to  work  with  them  and  to  find  help  somewhere  else.  

•  We  had  an  interview  with  a  woman  who  had  been  working  with  young  people  living  in  the  street  for  more  than  20  years.  She  is  the  owner  of  a  school  and  a  residence  for  them.  We  visited  them  and  the  movita9on  that  he  experienced  aUer  those  visits  helped  us  to  design  a  project  which  we  developed  in  one  month,  four  visits,  four  workshops  of  three  or  four  hours  each,  using  ephemeral,  simple  and  cheap  materials.  

•  1  visit:  We  took  some  pictures  and  talked  with  them.  We  realised  how  bad  they  felt  about  the  fact  that  a  lot  people  used  to  visit  them  but  they  never  came  back.  

•  2  visit:  We  showed  them  the  photos  as  a  giU  and  they  expressed  their  happiness  and  respect.  We  had  a  chat  and  we  drew  with  chalk  on  the  street.    

•  3  visit:  We  created  some  stencils  from  the  drawings  that  they  had  drawn  during  the  last,  and  we  used  them  in  the  street  and  also,  because  they  asked  for  that,  on  their  clothes.    

•  4  visit:  From  the  first  visit,  they  told  us  how  important  the  photos  were  for  them.  Is  because  of  that  why  we  worked  about  the  idea  of  portrait,  of  being,  of  belong.  We  provided  them  with  the  materials  and  we  drew  them,  mo9va9ng  them  to  draw  us.  A  lot  of  them  wanted  to  keep  their  portraits  in  order  not  to  forget  the  experienced  that  they  had.  Then,  they  hung  them  on  the  wall  of  their  space.  

•  when  the  ac9vity  was  over,  we  shared  some  drinks  to  say  goodbye  and  close  the  project.  The  representa9ve  people  from  the  City  Council  were  there  and  even  they  seemed  to  be  so  mo9vated  with  the  project,  it  never  con9nued.  

•  One  week  aUer  that  we  came  back  to  visit  them  and  the  drawing  on  the  wall  were  not  there  anymore.  They  told  us  that  as  they  liked  them  so  much,  they  did  not  want  to  keep  them  safe.  

•  This  project  were  not  produced  by  any  museum,  it  was  conceived  and  developed  to  explore  a  specific  group  of  people  from  Medellín.  The  public  and  the  par9cipants  were  the  same  and  even  they  were  under  the  effect  of  the  “glue”  that  they  inhale  they  really  enjoyed  the  ac9vi9es  and  they  expressed  it.  

•  The  strategy  itself  was  the  lack  of  strategy,  of  a  specific  plan.  We  were  able  to  read  though  their  faces,  to  listen  their  stories  and  using  our  conclusions,  we  designed  a  simple  ac9vity  each  week,  which  allowed  them  and  us,  to  share  a  moment  in  our  life.  

•  Currently,  thousand  of  young  people,  women  and  children  live  and  sleep  in  the  streets  of  Medellín.  Some  adults  have  lived  in  the  street  since  they  were  young  but  if  you  are  a  child  and  you  are  in  the  street,  is  really  difficult  to  grow  up  and  became  an  adult.  

•  20  people  worked  together  on  this  project:  photographers,  ar9sts,  publicists,  history  experts,  with  or  without  experience,  the  idea  was  to  share  and  to  develop  projects.  

•  Nowadays,  when  talking  about  our  projects  within  “La  Miscelánea”,  we  prefer  not  to  call  them  Ar9s9c  Manifesta9ons.  We  beSer  talk  about  Esthe9c  Manifesta9ons  in  order  to  avoid  the  discussion  about  if  what  we  do  is  art  or  not.  We  prefer  to  discuss  about  other  projects  and  problems.