We have moved!

This blog is no longer active, our apologies for any inconveniences. But not to worry, we haven't disappeared, we have just moved! To read more news about Sandblast and the Western Sahara, please go to our website or to our new blog.

ARTifariti 2012: can an artist promote freedom?

The Reina Sofía Museum, in Madrid, hosts the presentation of ARTifariti 2012 with a roundtable on art, conflict and human rights.

Performance Gdeim Izik (students of the Art School of Mostaganem).
International Encounter of Art Students and Saharawi Refugees

After the Arab Spring, which was born in the Western Sahara, is it possible to have a proactive type of art, at the same time transformational, that provokes real social change?

The American philosopher Noam Chomsky suggested to the world that the waves of protest that originated in North Africa had really started in Western Sahara at the end of 2010. In fact, the organisational scheme that was imposed in the freedom squares and that Evru collected for the project "The book of the squares" for ARTifariti 2011, had previously designed in the  camp of dignity of El Aaiun, Gdeim Izik, brutally dismantled on November 8 by the Moroccan forces with terrible consequences. The same patterns were repeated, as if in a chain revolution, in Western Sahara, Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen... The popular action managed to modify the course of history in many of this places. And among the people demonstrating in the squares, there were cyberactivists and artists who used the Internet to spread their messages and images of change.

Last June 29, in the space REDES of the Reina Sofía Museum, the seminar "Art, conflict and human rights. ARTifariti" took place. At the same time, and supported by a video edited by Jan Busowsky, ARTifariti 2012 was presented. The 6th edition of the International Art Encounters of the Western Sahara will be starting next October 20. Its commissioner, Isidro López-Aparicio, has launched a defying proposal: "The ideal project, the one we are looking for, will free the Saharawis from their exile in the refugee camps. While we wait for this one, every proposal that contributes to give them a voice, take the to the present time and help them to get out of the isolation the have been immersed into through the art will be welcome."

Apart from the invited group, made up of creators who in a certain way have already made their revolution, such as Isidoro Valcárcel Medina, Esther Ferrer, Gao Brothers, Santiago Sierra, Democracia, Gilles Fontolliet, Mohammad Shaqdih, Los Torreznos, Miquel Barceló, Antoni Muntadas, Andreas Kaufmann, Alain Ayers, Daniel G. Andujar, Left Hand Rotation, Tom Hall and the "bus of Art"; any artist could present a proposal.

Documentary by Jan Bosowsky and Isidro López-Aparicio

Can art really detonate these changes? This was the core of the debate that took place after the presentation with Isidro Valcárcel Medina, Pablo España, poet Bahía M. Awax and Isidro López Aparicio.

Since 2007, ARTifariti has been promoting contemporary artistic practices as tools of demonstration, transformation and activation of a specific social, cultural and geopolitical context. A yearly encounter whose central theme is the conflict that derived from the "decolonisation" of the Western Sahara and the continues violations of collective and individual human rights in this territory. ARTifariti is part of an international group of activities and projects that examine the relationship of art and human rights while promoting the art linked to a local community and outside the study room or the museum.

The project is framed in a multi directional and interdisciplinary structure that is thought to address creative spaces at different levels: international encounters of students, diverse actions, communication technology labs and seminars about contemporary arts and culture. Every year, international and local artists share projects that link art and social commitment in an open encounter that aims to enrich and ensure the continuity of the social network in which it is structured.

Isolation. Isidro López-Aparicio

Please note: information and pictures taken from ARTifariti's blog.

Saharawi arts and culture at the V&A

Last Saturday 23rd June Sandblast, with the support of the V&A Museum and in an event linked to Refugee Week, put together 'Out of the Sand - We are Saharawi', a sensational Saharawi arts and culture day at the Sackler's Centre of the museum. The event run from midday until approximately 4.30pm, and involved music, film, talk and a jewellery making workshop.

MUSIC: EL ANDALUZ

El Andaluz at the V&A Sackler's Centre

Fantastic Algerian music group El Andaluz Band, made up of Yazid Fentazi (oud), Karim Dellali (darboucka) and special guest Redha Boudbagh (voice and Algerian and oud), kicked off the afternoon with some incredible music. Having collaborated with Saharawi musicians in several occasions in the past (they performed in the jam session at Sahara Nights and Karim has travelled to the Saharawi refugee camps), these musicians offered the audience the perfect musical set up for the day. We were all soon tapping our feet and clapping to the intricate melodies and uplifting rhythms of the classic Arabic and Andalusian music they were performing.

FILM: BEAT OF DISTANT HEARTS

Umm Deleila, Saharawi singer
featured in Beat of Distant Hearts

Danielle Smith, filmmaker, photographer, anthropologist and Sandblast Founding Director, travelled to the Saharawi refugee camps for the first time in 1991. From the very beginning her imagination was captured by the inspiring Saharawi culture and the powerful role the arts, especially the music and poetry, but also the newly developed painting style, had played during the revolution and the 16 years of war (1975-1991). She decided to film a documentary showcasing this part of the story and Beats of Distant Hearts, the Art of the Revolution in Western Sahara was born. Although filmed in 1996, it was not released until 2000. Twelve years later, the film is still relevant today as it shows how the Saharawi arts and culture continue to be the best way of reaching international audiences and raise awareness about the Saharawi situation. After the screening, there was a Q&A with the filmmaker.

JEWELLERY MAKING WORKSHOP
In 2007, French Florie Salnot, a design student from the London Metropolitan Art Media & Design was challenged by her professor to develop a design project that could benefit both a community and the environment. Inspired by a talk by Danielle Smith, she developed a unique craft technique using hot sand and plastic bottles, both available in the refugee camps, and taught it to twenty-one Saharawi women to re-discover an ancient tradition of creative expression of their cultural identity.

Danielle shows us the thin strip of plastic
she's cutting off a bottle. At the back,
Florie supervises another workshop attendant

The technique is the following: the plastic bottle is first painted and then cut into thin strips. After that, any type of pattern can be made by positioning nails into the holes of a nail board: the plastic strip is placed around the nails and the whole board is submerged into hot sand. The plastic strip reacts to the heat by shrinking to fit the nail drawing, and keeps its shape when removed. The piece of jewellery then requires a few last steps and fittings to become finished.

On Saturday, Florie gave a workshop at the V&A for the attendants of 'Out of the Sand'. In a couple of hours each of us created a small ring out of thin strips of golden plastic using small copper sticks to shape the pieces of jewellery; it was fascinating to see how an everyday plastic bottle can become something so pretty and decorative!