CASE STUDY pyrography

Centro Colombo Americano and Educational Institution CASD José! María Espinosa Prieto inMedellin, Colombia

September ‘09 - December ’09

Theme: Identity and Territory

Facilitators: Deirdre Walsh (Ireland), Over Alvarez and Jorge Herrera (Colombia)

Participants:

Students from Educational Institution CASD José! María Espinosa Prieto in Castilla Medellin.

May!eld Arts Newbury HouseArt Action Toolbox: Case Study PyrographybackgroundDeirdre Walsh travelled to Colombia on a Youth In Action European Volunteer Service (E.V.S.) for three months in 2009 along with two other Irish volunteers. The three volunteers worked with the Centro Colombo Americano and 9 secondary schools in Medellin on a Youth Arts Festival. This festival was run as part of the Desarte Paz community art programme by the sta" of the Paul Bardwell Gallery in the Centro Colombo Americano. May!eld Arts Newbury House have been working in partnership with the Centro Colombo for many years and have also hosted Colombian volunteers in May!eld on EVS programmes.

The theme of the this project was Identity and Terriitory, and each of the schools chose a di"erent medium to express this theme. The students of C.A.S.D in the Castilla area of the city wanted to explore their physical territory and associated identity using maps, and also to use maps of the mind, body and dreams.

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HOW DID WE DO IT?Step 1: Enabling Creativity

Step 2: Drawing the Design & Burning the Wood

The group began with an exploration of how maps can be used to visualise physical and imagined territories. Work by artists who use maps in their work was examined, for example Guillermo Kuitca (Argentina) and Kathy Prendergast (Ireland). The group drew their daily journeys on real maps of their neighborhood to understand the language of maps. All of the students drew indiviual maps that they felt represented their identity and territory. Everyone placed the maps together to create a giant map.

The anticipated number of workshops could not take place due to school schedules, so the facilitators Deirdre and Over continued creating the giant pyrography map in the Centro Colombo Americano after consulting the teenagers about their vision for map. A map of a tree drawn by one student was chosen as the design and all the other maps were !tted into this design and drawn onto two mdf boards using a projector to trace the image. Pyrography tools were then used to burn the image into the wood in the gallery.

Step 3: Taping, Painting & FinishingOnce the drawing with the pyrography tools was !nished, tape was applied to mask the areas that were to reveal the image. The background was painted with white acryclic. May!eld Arts Newbury House typically rubs bitumen and white spirits into the white paint to give it a worn e"ect, but because bitumen wasn’t available in Medellin tinted varnish was rubbed into the paint to give a similar e"ect. After the paint and varnish was dry the tape was removed and the work was hung in the gallery. A box of thumb-tacks and string was hung on the wall beside the map so that the students from C.A.S.D. could interact with the map and make their route through di"erent parts that had special meaning for them. MC

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IMAGES OF THEFINISHED WORK

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