CCA News
Summer Abroad in El Salvador
Posted on Monday, February 7, 2011, by Carol Pitts
EL SALVADOR: COMMUNITY & COLLABORATIVE PARTNERSHIPS
May 23–June 10, 2011
Instructor: Claudia Bernardi
Claudia Bernardi will hold information sessions on her course:
Monday, February 14, 3:15–4 p.m.
SF campus, GC2
Wednesday, February 16, 3:15–3:45 p.m.
Oakland campus, B Building 1
Description
In March of 2005, in collaboration with the community of Perquin, Claudia Bernardi created The School of Art / Open Studio of Perquin, an international art and human rights, project of education, diplomacy building and community development. This unique art/ art education and community based project is designed to facilitate, implement, and teach art to children, youth and adults. In a community polarized by poverty, politics, and religion, art has become an important tool for conflict resolution, crime prevention and community building.
In the last six years, the School of Art and Open Studio of Perquin has established its ongoing presence in the community through the creation of public art projects, murals, urban interventions, and weekly classes and workshops in painting, drawing, wood sculpture, textile art, printmaking and mask making. International artists come to Perquin, producing week-long workshops designed to teach and disseminate their skills and aesthetic ideas.
During the three-week course, Professor Bernardi assists students in designing and implementing Art-in-Residence projects, according to the needs, economic limitations, and realities of Perquin. Students also will meet the community and community leaders, active members of grassroots organizations in the postwar time, becoming immersed in the recent history of El Salvador and the legacy of the Civil War, 1980-1992. Through lectures, visits, and conversations with ex-combatants, survivors of massacres, political leaders, and Salvadoran artists, students will consider how their projects, such as murals, public art, film and video documentation and visual art workshops, would respond to the current political reality of El Salvador.
Participants visit the University of Central America, The Museum of Words and Images in San Salvador, The Museum of the Revolution in Perquin, The MARTE, Museum of Modern Art and The Museum of Anthropology. After the trip to El Salvador, participants are expected to present their final projects and documentation to a general audience of CCA students and professors. This event is organized by the Center for Art and Public Life in Fall 2011.
Walls of Hope is now expanding its art and community-based activities beyond El Salvador. One of the most relevant aspects of the School of Art and Open Studio of Perquin is the creation of art projects developing what is known as The Perquin Model traveling the continent from Canada to Guatemala and Colombia.
About the Instructor
Claudia Bernardi is an internationally known visual artist who works in the fields of human rights and social justice. She works in installations, sculpture, and printmaking, and collaborates in projects with dance, theatre, and spoken word.
She has worked for over 25 years locally and internationally designing art–in–community projects working with participants who are survivors of state terror, political refugees and survivors of torture from Latin America and survivors of forced displacements as result of armed conflicts. Most recently she has focused on developing art–in–community projects to be carried out in countries at war or in postwar periods.
She has exhibited her work globally, including Yerba Buena Center for the Art; Sonoma Museum of Contemporary Art; The Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Art; Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art; Tokushima Modern Art Museum; Tucson Museum; Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art; Hiroshima Peace Center, Japan; Center for Building Peace, Northern Ireland; University of Haifa, Israel; Center for Latin American Studies at University of California at Berkeley; Carl Gorman Museum at University of California at Davis; Galeria Habana, Cuba; DAH Gallery, Belgrade, Serbia, and Montenegro.
A 2004 recipient of an Honorary Doctorate in Fine Arts, Doctor Honoris Causa. Bernardi has worked in association with the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team, exhuming mass graves in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Ethiopia.
Prerequisites
Undergraduates: Completion of sophomore level by summer 2011 and instructor approval
Graduates: instructor approval
In addition all students must be in good academic, conduct, and financial standing for the 2010–11 academic year.
Course Satisfies
For undergraduates, this course satisfies a studio elective requirement or 3 credits of Diversity Studies Studio; or for students who achieve junior or senior standing by the end of spring 2011, this course may be applied toward a UDIS requirement.
For graduates, this course satisfies a Studio Practice, Fine Arts Seminar, or Grad-wide Elective.
Program Fee
$4,450 + $50 summer reg fee
Program fee includes:
3 credits, housing, all breakfasts, local transportation to and from airport in El Salvador, field trips
Program fee does not include:
Airfare to and from El Salvador, most meals, travel insurance, medical or personal insurance (students MUST provide their own insurance)
Please make sure you read the related links in full:
Registration
Financial Aid
Passport, Visa, and Insurance
Code of Conduct
Registration begins on March 1 for all summer study abroad courses and ends on March 31. Interested students should contact Claudia Bernardi, cbernardi@cca.edu, right away to start the approval process for registration.