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School children in Brazil, Russia, South Africa and Denmark in shared effort to rethink their local neighbourhoods

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The international school project “CICLO arts education” has kicked off in Denmark, St. Petersburg, Rio de Janeiro and Cape Town. During the past two months, school children from the four countries have explored the fields of sustainability, their dreams of the future and their neighborhoods in a fun and creative space within the schools. Moreover, they have shared their projects with each other in extensive, international internet/blog collaboration. The 19th-23rd May children and artists in all four countries celebrate UNESCOs Arts Education Week with performances and exhibitions on sustainable development and dreams of the future.

Around one thousand 10-12 year old school children in Denmark, St. Petersburg/Russia, Cape Town/South Africa and Rio de Janeiro/Brazil have collaborated with local and international artists and teachers on creating music, drama, art works, murals, design and architecture models depicting their hopes for the future of their ‘hoods’.

In Rio de Janeiro, the actors/storytellers Warley Goulart and Cadu Cinelli are creating a play about the pollution of the local Guanabara Bay together with the children at Nucleo de Artes Culture Centre in Rio de Janeiro. They write the storyline together and create the visual scenery of the play. At the same time, the talented musician Daniella Speilmann is working with a group of children on creating a soundscape for the play building their own instruments using materials as everyday waste and water. The process is shared on a blog with their Danish partner class, who are also working on and sharing their CICLO project. 

In Copenhagen, students at the multicultural Peder Lykke School are working with designer Nild Regout and architect Julie Dufour Wiese on reimagining sustainable design solutions for the nearby beach area – producing models of the future in cardboard and an exhibition. Meanwhile, students at two schools in Ishøj south of Copenhagen are working with artists Marcela Lucatelli and Marluze da Cruz on a musical dance performance which shares the children’s interpretation of a future ‘Cradle to Cradle’ sustainable community which will be performed at Arken Museum of Contemporary Art.

In St. Petersburg, children in the art and puppet theatre department are creating art works on the cycles of nature and how it impacts the children.  The students work with several subjects such as autumn mood, winter bird, Snow, spring in Saint Petersburg, Nature’s Cycle etc. The students met with artists, visited different exhibitions and during all this time they were working with different materials and technics and the puppet theater group made forms, images, feelings and sounds of all these pictures. 

In Cape Town, the children in Grade 5 from Parkfields Primary completed a beautiful painting on a 22 metre wall in the school courtyard. This has been a project involving the teachers and students from Parkfields as well as the work of community artists and the teachers of the Frank Joubert Art Centre. The entire court-yard which was once very grey will be transformed not only with 2 murals flanking each side but also a two-storied mural across the north entrance of the court-yard. The images and words in the mural speak to the values and ethos of the school and the kind of learning environment that the principal and teachers strive for at this school. The school is based in an area where children have to cope with serious social challenges and arts and creativity can play a positive role.

Liesl Hartmann, Principal Frank Joubert Art Center and managing CICLO in Cape Town, says in regards to the importance of the project: 
- The vision of Frank Joubert art centre and our Ibhabhathane project is to give our learners a vision of life that can be improved by empowering children to express their ideas in a positive way through quality art(s) and design education.   If as art educators we are relentless in our vision to create critically thinking young people who are sensitive to their environment and those they share it with, then I believe that the tide of violent crime and poverty that is experienced in some of our communities in Cape Town, can be addressed in a positive way by the same young people that we are educating. These are the children that, as adults, will become the custodians of our communities in the future…. I believe that through projects like these, where we connect with our international partners and colleagues that the quality of our teaching will enrich and inspire us as art and design teachers. 

CICLO and UNESCO 
The goals of CICLO 2014 are founded on UNESCO's goals for arts education in schools which was formulated in the Seoul Agenda in 2010. CICLO focuses specifically on the following three points; improved access to arts education, an improved quality of arts education and addressing social and cultural global challenges through arts education. In addition, CICLO will contribute to reaching these goals by being part of the UNESCO Arts Education week 2014.

CICLO is created in a wide-ranging collaboration between local and international cultural institutions and organizations, artists, teachers and schools in the four countries. CICLO provides children aged 10-12 years with an understanding of the world and cultural differences/similarities and gives new perspectives on the possibilities of creating a sustainable future together.

The Danish Minister of Education, Christine Antorini, speaks directly to the children in CICLO in a video speech from May 15th, 2014:
- You are children and students from Denmark, Brazil, Russia and South Africa, and you know each other because you have used the internet to communicate with each other. It is one of the ways things have become easier, that a globalized world becomes local and we can get great use of each other across borders. That is what you have proved, and what you will share with each other during this (CICLO at UNESCOs Art Education) week. 

- You will show how it is possible to work with sustainability and experiences from different countries. And there are many exciting examples of how you have chosen to work with this theme. Some worked with recycled materials, because we can’t have a world where we just throw everything away and don’t think about how we can make use of things in different ways. We all have an obligation. And you have some truly great ideas on how we can pass a good world – a sustainable world – on to others.       

International and creative exchange on the internet 
The CICLO schools are partaking in bilateral internet school collaboration coordinated by the Danish Cultural Institute. The Danish school classes all have international friendship classes in one of the other countries, with whom they blog about their projects, sustainability, art and their neighborhoods. This collaboration has shown to be a creative process and the schools have already posted many exciting things on their blogs and it creates an interesting dialogue between the children in the different countries. The blog collaboration also gives the children an important insight in the remarkably different lives and realities of the friendship classes. They get inspired and get new perspectives on how life can be in different parts of the world while at the same time sharing common ground within the CICLO project. Her Royal Highness Princess Marie of Denmark is protector of UNESCO and has particularly shown interest in this part of the project. 

International artist exchange
CICLO contains a bilateral artist exchange where 12 artists from the four countries will partake in CICLO activities and some of them will partake in the final CICLO events. Through the international exchange, the children experience that their own lives and creativity exists along completely different realities around the world. Intercultural learning strengthens mutual understanding, local cultural appreciation of diversity and coping with the worlds challenges. 

Grand CICLO Finale
The CICLO project will culminate in UNESCO’s Arts Education Week May 19. - 23. This will be celebrated with performances, concerts, workshops and presentations of the various projects made by the participating schools and local and international artists in all of the four countries. 

In Denmark, the finale will be a big two day event on May 21st-22ndfor with approximately 800 children partaking in all the fun activities and the event will be visited by Her Royal Highness Princess Marie. 

In Cape Town, Frank Joubert Art Centre and the Ibhabhathane project will celebrate all week. An exhibition will be shown in three venues in Cape Town which will showcase the visual art and design projects where students have explored the theme of My Hood (Re-Imagining your Future). Furthermore, the performance “Into the Sun” will be performed. The students have been involved on every level in this performance from making instruments and composing music to writing the poetry.

At St. Petersburg City Palace of Youth Creativity, they will celebrate with an Art-studio exhibition titled “Seasons”, a video and photo report about CICLO activities in four countries and several puppet theater plays on May 21st. 

In Rio de Janeiro, they will celebrate on May 22nd where the children will perform the play and soundscape they have created with the artists for an audience of up to 1000 children.   

For more information:

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