On January 6, 2024, Mercedes Ferreira-Dias and Emma Fang will co-lead a Pre-Texts workshop for children, aged 8-13, of BASF employees. This intensive camp session is an extension of our facilitators’ summer internship of 2023, thanks to the leadership and support of Clement Chung, who has led Pre-Texts trainings for over a decade in Hong Kong and in Shanghai. The workshop will feature writing stories, with related visual and performing arts, to explore and understand BASF which will strengthen family ties.
Robotics on San Andrés Island
Colombia’s Ministry of Sciences, Technologies, and Innovation hosted a Robotics Camp in San Andres Islands in November 2023, Our star colombian facilitator, Victoria Eugenia Mena Rodríguez, of the Universidad Tadeo Lozano in Bogota, added STEAM for participant teachers from a variety of disciplines through Pre-Texts. They co-constructed many ways to approach technical information and to create new robots. Bilingual, and bicultural, San Andres residents are especially agile and creative. Read More.
Argentina
Sculpture Walk in the Padre Mugica Neighborhood/Slum
“On Saturday, December 2, we celebrated the end of this year’s cycle of workshops with the exhibition “El paseo de las esculturas” followed by a party open to the whole community with Rap and surprises. During this year we worked together with the artist Marcela Cabutti and the botanical writer Marisa Pesavento to make these sculptures that will become part of the public space of the neighborhood. In addition, all workshop participants received their diploma in appreciation for their commitment and their joy from 2019 to the present. congratulations! Go Pre-Texts”.
Texts and Paper Magic,
Ramón Carrillo Neighborhood/Slum
“On Saturday, December 9, we hosted a show of all the works of the year together with our colleagues from Comedor Siempre Carrillo, in the Ramón Carrillo neighborhood-slum in the city of Buenos Aires. We received a visit from the Leo Circo Show and his paper circus. Our boys and girls received their diploma of participation in our workshops, most of them have been attending the workshops in the dining room since 2019. Congratulations!”.
Amoeba Tours
University of Connecticut students at Harvard Art Museums
Jose Falconi facilitated this Tour for his University of Connecticut students with the short text by Jorge Luis Borges, “The Two Kings and the Two Labyrinths.” Guests included Tur Woods, actor and theater developer for youth in Boston, and Francisco Alvarez, economist in the Masters Program at Harvard’s School of Public Health. The tour was the last class session of the course “Image as Witness” –an exploration on the role of images and oral and written testimonies in Human Rights contexts. Report and photos here.
Harvard Museums “Objects of Addiction”
Giuliano Picchi, Cultural Agents fellow at Harvard and cultural entrepreneur at MIT SAP sent these photos from our Amoeba Tour at the Harvard Art Museums on November 25, 2023. With friends from Harvard ALARI, ALI, Universidad Sagrado Corazón in Puerto Rico, MIT, and a local biomedical startup, we read from Jesús Colón’s book Puerto Rican in New York, the first chapter about readers in tobacco factories. Then we connected passages from the reading with the Museum’s exhibition on Addiction. Learn more.
Santa Maria in Organo in Verona
New Workshop
Prison Education And Prison Prevention
Pre-Texts is pedagogical acupuncture. It raises reading comprehension, lowers depression, and promotes collaboration. With a single prompt: “Use this text as raw material to make art,” we trigger each educational gear to activate the others and to achieve high impact at low cost. Partners around the world attest to the results.
See www.pre-texts.org; Come to the next training series, place at MIT TBA
January 8 and 9 1-3 pm and 4-6 pm.
Confirm your spot by sending an email to dsommer@fas.harvard.edu.
Summer Internship Showcase
On December 7th, Pre-Texts coordinators Isabella, Sophia, and Josh hosted a table at the Summer Opportunities & Funding Fair, engaging with students interested in the summer internship program.
On December 8th, they presented internship experiences and led a Pre-Texts session at DRCLAS. The internship program connects undergrads with host organizations around the world to lead arts-literacy workshops through the Pre-Texts methodology.
For more information, contact joshuapeck@college.harvard.edu.
Italy
Fra Forum, Italy
The Fra Forum, organized by the Cultural Association HUB-C of Pescara under the leadership of Giovanna Romano, a participant in the Pre-Texts workshop in Pescara, was held under the theme “Nothing is as it seems.” Read about Fra Forum in the press.
This Year’s Highlight by Valeria Pica
Slamgraff Festival, Senegal
The Pre-Texts experience conducted by Valeria Pica in Senegal took place as part of the Slamgraff Festival organized by Slam’Art Tamba and the CLAP (Centre for Literature, Art, and Philosophy) developed within the Mame Cheikh Mbaye High School in Tambacounda.
TBA: the Book Tour
“Pre-Texts, the Book” is now available through Harvard University Press.
Stay tuned for Pre-Texts international Book Tour in Argentina, the United States, and Mexico.
Rx: Arts for Global Mental Health
In fall 2023, Doris Sommer launched “Rx: Arts for Global Mental Health” for the Harvard Medical School’s Media and Medicine Masters program. It included a session of Forum Theater, readings in the tradition of aesthetic judgment, and cases of the arts that support global health. Speakers included Jeremey Nobel, Alice Flaherty, and Nisha Sajnani who led seminar discussions on how global health can benefit from an aesthetic approach to technical and social challenges.
Welcome Mary Peng, from the RX course, as the most recent assistant for our Cultural Agents mission.
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