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| Culture Keepers exhibit at the Goethe Institute in collaboration with Paula Doepfner's solo show: Take it Right Back |
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| Paula Doepfner workshop with students and Culture Keepers after school program |
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| For you I have been absent in the spring (c) Paula Doepfner, Courtesy the artist and Galerie Tanja |
The Goethe Institute facilitated a workshop Culture Keepers! Every year we engage youth in current social and political
issues through the arts. The program has an international focus
and a specific emphasis on the the global African diaspora and has received
funding from the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Educational and
Cultural Affairs to conduct
international youth exchanges.
Workshop participants
worked with materials such as water, paper,
plants, pigments, etc. to address questions related to materials, processes,
aesthetics – as well as the social construction notions of the environment,
nature, the city, and beauty. Questions posed in workshop: What are natural
materials? What are "urban" materials, is there a difference? Who has
access to which materials? How are access and representation of materials
historically, socially and politically relevant? Who has ownership of
"nature," "the environment," "space"? Why? How is the nature of used and
perceived global cultural
differences? Who uses nature
and what are the effects
of these terms (e.g. climate
change)? What is violence - on a personal (i.e. pain,
sadness, anger), on a local level (i.e. physical violence), on a global level
(i.e. environmental violence)? What is resilience? Can we express universal
narratives of violence, resilience, or beauty through objects?
