Unesco Etxea selected the Alavesas Irene Basilio Intxausti and Irantzu Lekue to attend together with Elssie Ansareo, Leire Martinez, Jone Otero and Arrate Velasco to the Swiss headquarters of the UN.
In Geneva, they addressed “Artistic and cultural education as a right”. They will apply the knowledge they acquire to their lines of work.
The program was a combination of a theoretical part, with practical and face-to-face participation in different instances of the Human Rights Council. The six selected work values for Social Transformation in the Basque Country, mainly with young people.
BILBAO Six Basque women linked to the field of art and creation will travel next Monday, March 19, to Geneva, accompanied by Unesco Etxea together with its director Arantzazu Acha de la Presa. For five days, artists and cultural managers Elssie Ansareo, Irene Basilio Intxausti, Irantzu Lekue, Leire Martinez, Jone Otero and Arrate Velasco will attend the UN Human Rights Council and participate in this highly practical training program during the 37th period of sessions of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, from March 19 to 23, 2018. A program that “has been in existence since 2011 sponsored by Unesco Etxea and with the support of the International Catholic Centre of Geneva. They will train these artists who all have in common the values for social transformation in the Basque Country, especially with young people”, they explained.
This is the case of Irene Basilio Intxausti and Irantzu Lekue Alaves who have an extensive background in terms of work for social transformation. Irene is a founding member of Teklak. Communication and Audience Study, “we support, through the activation and consolidation of their projects creativity, knowledge and critical thinking”. One of the main issues is to support other cultural and creative structures in terms of audience development, “key to social transformation,” says lrene Basilio. “Working on the creation and training of audiences is essential at a cultural, economic and social level: cultural because it allows more people to experience the value of artistic creation in first person; economic because it allows us to reach new and wider audiences, and that translates into an increase in economic resources; and social because the arts broaden our horizons, our capacity for empathy and mutual understanding. ”
Muralism for social transformation
The artist and muralist Irantzu Lekue began working on social transformation three years ago. “My first challenge was to work inclusive art and I started by doing it from my own work.” She went to ART Madrid with her proposal which was given a great reception. “Then I started with urban art installations such as the Cultural Capital or Shoes, always linked to social issues” and it was in May 2017 when she presented ARTgia sorgune & aretoa. “Here we were very clear that we wanted our daily work to have social transformation as its central axis, which is why we included it as a transversal line. With words and deeds. That is why it is present in each and every one of our projects along with other criteria such as Euskara or the gender perspective: they are transversal. The goal is to improve our environment, inside and out through culture and art.” A challenge which also takes shape in her mural projects “where we have coined the concept of muralism for social transformation, in substance and forms. That is why we are very happy to have been selected to go to the United Nations to reflect, learn and show what each of us are doing,” she explains.
On this occasion the program is aimed at artistic educators, cultural managers or teachers and during these working days they will study in depth the Right to Education or Cultural Rights. The Program allows a practical approach to the operation of the Human Rights protection mechanisms of the UN System. It is a combination of a theoretical part, with practical and face-to-face participation in different instances of the Human Rights Council.
Plastic artist, Elssie Ansareo, , cultural manager Irene Basilio Intxausti, , muralist Irantzu Lekue and director of ARTgia Leire Martinez, co-founder of the Artemisa Space Jone Otero and in the field of performing arts Arrate Velasco, culture technician, will also attend , together with the representation of Unesco Etxea and the director Arantzazu Acha de la Presa. An act in which “Artistic and cultural education as a Right” .it will also be attended by Karima Bennoune, UN Cultural Rights Rapporteur, Gemma Carbó, director of ConArte Internacional, Aranzazu Toledo – Pedagogical director of primary school, IIMA Spain and Emilio Pin Godós, Human Rights Advisor of the Permanent Representation of Spain at the UN. In this session, different topics will be addressed with the objective of showing examples of how to incorporate artistic education into work values of social transformation from both the formal and non-formal educational fields and artistic education will be used as a tool for human rights education.
It was the first time that this Unesco Etxea program focused its attention on art, culture and values for Social Transformation. In other editions it had addressed professionals in the field of cooperation and development education, however, this time it is aimed at artistic educators, cultural managers, and teachers who will receive practical and theoretical training in Geneva on instruments related to Right to Education or Cultural Rights.
