spain

The Bona Fides Association and the Spanish organization „Imágenes y Palabras (cultural association)” are looking for the Rural Cultural Life” project.  The Applications (CV and cover letter) should be sent to : mariachiara@bonafides.pl. In the title of the email, please write: „EVS in Burgos, SPAIN – application”

Receiving organization: Imágenes y Palabras

Location  : Burgos, Spain

Deadline : 30th December 2018

Duration : 6 months

Mobility period:  March 2019 to October 2019

IMÁGENES Y PALABRAS: A CULTURAL ASSOCIATION:  Imágenes y Palabras (cultural association) is constantly creating cultural and artistic activities in rural areas,
in villages and towns belonging to the Province of Burgos, ever since its foundation in 1999. The main characteristic of the activities initiated by Imágenes y Palabras is its wide variety. However, they are brought together in their unique invitation to ‘create’, both in terms of ideas as well as artworks. In this way, the activities have become a true stimulus for artists and a call for an active participation from the public. They are ranging from contemporary art exhibitions, scarecrows competitions, film viewings, creative workshops for children, concerts, seminars, book readings – in other words, all activities that in one way or another relate to Culture and Society.

EL HACEDOR: GROUP WORKSHOP AND CULTURAL CENTRE: https://www.facebook.com/HacedorImagenesyPalabras/ The Group Workshop and Cultural Centre “El Hacedor” based in the village of La Aldea del Portillo de Busto form the headquarters for Imágenes y Palabras since 2009, a creative space and a meeting place. Together with the extensive workshop full of tools and materials, meant for artistic production, there is an art gallery (150 m2), a sculpturepark (3.000 m) and a hostel where artists, students, volunteers, members of Imágenes y Palabras and guests can stay, both individually and in groups. (https://www.facebook.com/descansohacedor/) In the workshop, artists of different backgrounds can produce and exchange ideas. The sculpturepark is mainly dedicated to the figure of the scarecrow (Encantapájaros – “charmingcrow”) and open to interventions in the environment. Imágenes y Palabras guarantees a continuous programme of exhibitions in the art gallery, especially suitable for group exhibitions of all kind of artistical expressions, which also gives space to other types of activities such as filmshows, music, theatre, poetry recitals, dance, performances, … hence any proposal that conforms with the aims of Imágenes y Palabras.

VOLUNTEERS: Imágenes y Palabras offers a place to (inter)national volunteers and students of different universities, both insdide and outside Spain, that fosters creativeness and allows youngsters to develop new skills. This way, Imágenes y Palabras guarantees ongoing activity in the project, in the context of the depopulation that our area suffers from, especially within the younger generations. Since 2002, more than 150 young people from all over the world have lived in La Aldea del Portillo de Busto for a period of time. We believe it is vital to include young people in projects taking place in the rural areas. This involvement will help raise the attention for the actual problems of small, almost depopulated, villages, most notably occurring in Mediterranean countries.

LA ALDEA DEL PORTILLO DEL BUSTO: La Aldea is located in the middle of the Natural Parc “Montes Obarenes”, at 900 m. above sea level in an area of great interest in terms of its landscape. https://goo.gl/maps/3ukYcNWYv2T2 Furthermore, it is strategically placed at a crossroad, which sees many neighbours, holiday makers and visitors pass through. The number of visitors with a demand for culture and quality leisure slightly, but considerably, increases.

THE PROJECT:

 Volunteers perfile: ready to live in rural areas, creative, and con enthusiasm to work, live and create colectively The principal activity of this project is group creation.
The cultural association Imágenes y Palabras, in permanent search of cultural activity and diversity in the rural areas of northern Spain, uses the cultural action as a method and a tool to fight against depopulation of small villages. The association has been active in the region, in the field of arts and culture, over the past 20 years. For the coming year we launch the following project: The creation of a cross-generational, multidisciplinary and intercultural group work of art in rural area. Summarizing, the idea is to create a context whereby we facilitate participants of the diverse activities we propose, to reach a direct collaboration in the creation process. The groups with which we work are very diverse: school-children, old people from surrounding villages, artists in residence, young people who come for holidays and even volunteers together with tutors and coordinators of
the organization. For each target group we will adapt methods of work and formats to use in creationprocesses. We cover a wide range of artistic disciplines: sculptural and pictorial arts, theatre, writing and also construction and landart interventions. We wish to organize this activity with the help of international volunteers of the European Solidarity Corps to enrich the experience on a cultural, artistical and linguistical level. The volunteers will work, next to the coordinators, in all phases of the organization to come to a satisfactorily result. At the same time we will work in and around “El Hacedor”, the base of the association, to maintain the arts gallery, the workshops and the surrounding environment. This work includes the organization of exhibitions (both inside the gallery and in the open air), maintenance of the vegetable garden, planting of aromatics, caring of animals and general conservation of infrastructures. Although the volunteers apparently have few possibilties to entertain themselves during freetime, we offer an intense leisure program. We introduce volunteers to places “normal tourists” wouldn’t find so easily: small enterprises of the region, geographical jewels and amazing, hidden corners and we
impulse a permanent dialogue between volunteers and habitants from the region.
For volunteers with an artistic interest, we invite them to develop their creativity in a personal project. Their creations will be part of, and will increase, the collection of artworks of Imágenes y Palabras. Volunteers work and live in the base of Imágenes y Palabras, cultural association with residence in a small hamlet in the North of the province of Burgos (Spain). The silence of the village and the huge, empty surroundings make coexistence during daily life a very intense experience. Independently of what volunteers learn during work on a practical level, the experience is social and human, is of respect and confidence, appreciation and values. We hope, both volunteers in this project and students from the schools, artists in residence, visitors of El Hacedor and habitants of the villages,
with this initiative will understand a little bit better the meaning and the significance of the word “inter-cultural”. In this project we are searching for 2 volunteers for a period of at least 6 months (between March and October 2019) willing to live and work in an isolated village in Spanish mountains, with interest in artistic creation, in a broad meaning of the word, and ready to live closely together with coordinators of the project and other visitors of El Hacedor