The Caravan Expedition: A South-American Journey of Cultural Exchange and Solidarity.
SOUTH AMERICA, A GIANT SOCIAL, POLITICAL AND CULTURAL LABORATORY
A
caravan expedition of cultural exchange and solidarity, composed by
trucks which carry artistic projects, travel 12,000 miles between
Caribbean, Andes and Amazon (Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia). From
Indian communities to farmers collectives, the expedition will make
steps of exchanges and collectives creations with structures that set up
alternatives and innovative projects, builders or pioneers of a new
world.
The Caravan Expedition hopes to participate - as it can - to a global new world construction movement.
WHAT?
Winter
2013-2014, our expedition will start in *Cartagena de las Indias* and
lead us to the lake *Titicaca*. For 3 months, we will visit various
communities for long stages and will collect the experiences to share
them in South America then in Europe.
We
will offer creative workshops as well as discovery to education and
magical spaces. For each stage, we will be greeted for a week by
associations, communities, local productions or cultural centers, with
whom we will share new experiences around themes such as health, energy,
transmission, food autonomy, urban culture, and beyond.
We
dream of echoing the richness of so many new social and political
experiences, integrating communities in our path, connecting with other
horizons...
We will collect the
common experience - radio and video recording, watercolor texts,
photos, etc - which we will work on and broadcast during the trip on
several supports: radio-web, multimedia web platform, books and CDs
edition… So our hosts will have an immediate - and sustainable - access
to the collectives and artistic productions of the expedition.
WHO?
Two
filmmaker-cameramen, one editor-cameramen, one sound engineer, one
editor-animator two ethnologists, an ecologist, one
watercolourist-puppeteer, an electronic engineer, several
stilts-walkers, several musicians, several actors, a healer, a mechanic,
radio presenters... 30 creators and their numerous interlocutors
enthusiasts along the way. A heterogeneous and complementary group to
participate to the construction of a local society in a turmoil !
WHERE?
A) COLOMBIA
1) The launch of the expedition will be in CartagenadelasIndias,
on the Caribbean coast of Colombia. An event tribute to social and
ethnic diversity. The city was the largest slave port of the continent,
today greatly prized by strangers from all over the world, it rejects
the native populations to outskirts. Our partners: two associations,
CiudadMovil and Metropoli, who work to preserve the social and ethnic diversity, one of the foundations of the city.
2)
In the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in the Colombian Andes, an Arhuacos
Indian community in Nausimaque offers new ways of apprehending health.
The Indians manage a public health company, combining traditional and
western medicine.
3)
Next stop: Maria La Baja in a Maroons community. A step dedicated to
women and transmission. Maroons are the descendants of slaves who fled
to establish free villages. Our partner over there: the Eulalia Gonzalez
Cultural Centre where Pabla Flores Gonzalez, singer and troubadour,
transmits the force of Africanness and freedom for young and very young
people, through the Bullerengue, a music danced by all but mostly sung
by women to tell everyday life.
4)
In Cali, located in the Cauca Valley, we will have a stage about urban
culture with the specials "educators" of the Multi-Proposito college, in
the popular neighborhood of Siloe.
To fight the high level of violence in the area, they develop an education project through reading, "Lecturaalpiso" (full tilt reading), carried by library-mares and the circus school Circo Para Todos.
B) ECUADOR
In
Ecuadorian Amazon, a stage will be about energies, at the heart of an
Amazon defense front community. This front unites Cofan Indians
communities and farmers associations who won after almost 20 years of
fighting a lawsuit against a multinational oil, Texaco. A world
premiere.
C) PERU
1) In the north, an archaeological site will tell us more about the Inca social forms, to think about modern democracy.
2)
In Merced, we will stay in full immersion in a farmer cooperative, La
Florida, for a step dedicated to food production modes and the social
economy. The prosperous cooperative has also developed a union school
and a women organization.
D) BOLIVIA
Last
stage, it will be about new leadership forms and political
representations. We will meet with stakeholders of the N.I.N.A. program,
which forms popular leaders and stimulates the organization of farmers
and indigenous movements, as well as their political and civic
participation. It will be on the Titicaca shores, located at an altitude
of more than 3,500 meters (11,500 ft) and around La Paz.
HOW?
The caravan expedition will be composed by various “project-vehicles”, here is how it will be organized:
1)
BabelKino, the movie truck: Realization, edition and projection of
weekly documentary information (with ARTE, a cultural TV channel in
europe), 90 minutes documentary movie at the end; training youth for
citizen journalism in order to feed the bilingual inter-associative
platform "A World in Motion(s)"; projections of their achievements; A
web platform and a webdoc "Chronicles of a New World": universal
communication portal, which gathers all the multimedia creations of the
expedition.
It carries the
Melquiades's yurt too, a multimedia fun space to raise public awareness
of renewable energies through films (cycling projections, movies'
ancestor revisited...)
We need 1000 euros to conclude the development of the two web platforms.
For
the Melquiades's yurt and the citizen journalism trainings, we need
projectors for a total value of 1400 euros and edition computer for 1200
euros.
2) The
theatre-truck: It houses a theater company, Etincelles, which through
workshops, create a participative show, filled out from a stage to
another, and to end up on a cabaret show in which few funny marionettes
may have slipped into it.
4)
The bookmobile: Writing, editing and printing of tales and myths'
books at each stage, for a global edition at the end of the trip.
5)
A phonotruck: Radio production and recording studio, which collects the
musical richness and voices during the travel. Recording and broadcast
of radio programs on web.
We need 1400 euros for the CD duplication station et the printer for books and CDs realized and distributed at each stage.
The bookmobile and the phonotruck have funding difficulties. If necessary, the projects
could be housed by others vehicles, but you can help us make it happen !
TAGS
Community, solidarity, travel
Caribbean, Amazon, Andes
Learn, Investigate, Think, Share, Diffuse, Spread
Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia
To contact us:
https://www.facebook.com/BabelCarAmazAndes
marcho@marcho.net
Our previous expeditions
http://www.arte.tv/fr/babel-caucase-la-caravane-2007/3449878,CmC=3398514.html
http://www.arte.tv/fr/babel-caucase-2010/3398150.html
http://babelcaucase.free.fr/
