News
Five 2008 artists will stay
on for a second year in 2009!
ArtCorps plans to grow its team
and is now searching for an in-country Program Officer. Click here for more
info.
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Contact Info
ArtCorps
www.artcorp.org
+1 (978)
927-2404
artcorps@nebf.org
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This
Month
A dramatic mural campaign calls attention to The
Riecken Foundation's community libraries as a resource for
all. Read below to find out how. The team on the ground
is comprised of ArtCorps Artist Andrea Pérez and the directors
of the three Riecken libraries: Carla Paola Vázquez, Hugo
Bulux, and Silvia Paola Vasquez de Leon.
 Originally from Ecuador, Andrea is gifted with a
unique ability to communicate through visual image. Her
personal passion to use art as a tool for healing and
inspiration has led her to serve as both muralist and
caregiver in homes for children, cerebral palsy patients, and
the mentally ill. She has also worked in commercial graphic
design in the United States.
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"If people read..."
Can art
help people see books and libraries as real resources for
transforming their communities?
ArtCorps volunteer Andrea Pérez thinks
so--and so do the people in three communities in Guatemala who
are benefiting from Andrea's work. Working in partnership with
the Riecken Foundation, Andrea has created community murals at
libraries in Río Blanco, Cabricán, and San Carlos Sija.
The Riecken Foundation works with communities in
Guatemala and Honduras to create community libraries. Built on
the conviction that literacy and access to information are the
foundation for critical thinking and civic participation,
Riecken libraries serve as community centers, offering
high-quality books, internet access, and the opportunity to
engage information and ideas from around the world. More than
60 libraries have been built.
Andrea's task as an ArtCorps
volunteer has been to increase community awareness,
particularly among young people and children. Andrea designed
a mural project to attract residents with warm beauty and
engage them with thought-provoking messages.
Andrea
attests that the task was not always easy. First, the
logistical challenge: the three communities are culturally
distinct and scattered geographically. Just getting from one
to the other is a significant undertaking. Next, the challenge
of bringing people together: none of the communities has
strong traditions of community organizing or civic engagement.
The library in Cabricán, a community of about 23,000, is the
oldest; it existed for many years as a traditional library and
joined the Riecken network in July 2004. Río Blanco is a small
community with fewer than 5,000 residents, and its library
opened in March 2007. San Carlos Sija is the largest and most
developed of the three communities with a population of
35,000, but it also has the newest library, having opened in
April 2007.
Andrea worked with library directors to
select the spaces and mural designs. She then won support from local businesses and town halls. Still,
attracting broad community participation provided a dilemma.
She found that she needed to show an impressive product first
in order to inspire participation. However, before residents
joined in, many passersby were concerned that she was defacing
a public space. They would question, "Why don't you use this
color?" or "When will it be finished?"
Nonetheless,
Andrea persevered to create 23 murals inside and outside of
the libraries. They contain bright colors, images from
Guatemala's indigenous heritage, and symbols of the local
communities. They make the libraries more inviting,
demonstrate the importance of literacy and reading, and
motivate gender equality and empowerment.
Río Blanco
library director Carla Paola Vásque z says, "More and more, we see art from a
wider perspective as something that allows human beings to
express who they are and what they think and feel about
reality, which is not common in our community. It permits
people to create their own world, transform it, and improve it
to the extent they dedicate themselves to it."
In the
end, the finished murals astonished residents. Relatives in
the United States who visited Río Blanco for its annual
festival commented that the community has changed. It will
continue to change as people take advantage of the libraries.
As one mural says, quoting Spanish writer Ramiro Pinilla: "Si
la gente leyese, el mundo sería distinto," which translates
to, "If people read, the world would be different."
Click here to see a
video of the new library façade in San Carlos
Sija.
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