CULTURAL AGENTS

Arts and Humanities Civic Engagement

Upcoming Events

Pre-Texts invites you to participate in creative interpretations of James Baldwin’s essay ‘Nothing Personal’ 

at the installation
Autumn (… Nothing Personal) by Teresita Fernández
in Tercentenary Theatre, Harvard Yard

on September 7th, 14, 21st, and 28th, 2018 from 3-5pm
This series will prepare you to interpret complex texts through art making.
This workshop series will be led by Prof. Doris Sommer

The event is free, but RSVP is strongly encouraged: https://goo.gl/forms/P0aDihYJZG2jW3cR2

For details, contact Jahnvi Singh at jsingh@culturalagents.org

This symposium is organized by University of California, Davis, Tufts University, and Harvard University. Key presenters include Cultural Agents fellow, Ian Koebner, and CA Director, Doris Sommer. Koebner, PhD – works as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anaesthesiology and Pain Medicine at University of California.

At Tufts University, 136 Harrison Avenue, Boston, MA 02111

For details of this event, visit: https://www.culturalagents.org/events/2018/7/20/anesthetics-the-art-of-analgesia

Join us as Ian Koebner, PhD explores the role of museums as public health partners. Koebner will focus on Art Rx, an innovative collaboration between the Crocker Art Museum and the Integrative Pain Management Program at UC Davis, and draw from the fields of pain research and the philosophy of aesthetics.

At Mahindra Humanities Center at Harvard Barker Center, Room 211 (2nd Floor), 12 Quincy St. Cambridge, MA 02130

For details of this event, visit:

https://www.culturalagents.org/events/2018/9/4/anesthetics-and-the-analgesic-museum

Cultural Agents News

Meet our new team members!

María Paula is a historian in the practice interested in exploring ways to narrow the gap that exists between institutions working with cultural heritage and a broader public. She has worked in a range of cultural organizations and government institutions, such as the Colombian National Public Radio, the Bogotá’s Office of Culture, Recreation and Sports, and the Museums of the Central Bank of Colombia. Her work is located at the intersection of informal education, communications, and cultural management.

Jahnvi is a learning experience designer from India, and a Pre-Texts facilitator, with hands-on experience in the field of crafts & making, education, and human-centred design. She has worked with young learners, educators, school leaders, museum curators, artists, environmentalists, and more to create cultural learning tools and connect classrooms to the real-world in a way that makes everyday learning effective, valuable, and adaptable to the 21st century.

Perry Gao serves as the Social Science Research Associate at the US-China Youth Education Solutions Foundation. He also manages the XMedia Lab at Harvard Graduate School of Education. Prior to his current positions, Perry taught in public schools and worked as a museum educator in Oregon. At Cultural Agents, Perry helps the organization scale up its global impact on education.

Pre-Texts News:

In June 2018, Pre-Texts facilitators Polly Lauer and Jahnvi Singh traveled to Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu in South India to begin a year-long Pre-Texts project with the CSI Girls Higher Secondary School (grades 6-12). After receiving an invitation from CSI Bishop Appasamy College of Arts & Science (BACAS) and the Church of South India, which operates a network of schools for underprivileged children, the Pre-Texts team (Anshul Kumar, Lauer, Singh) secured a grant from Harvard University’s Lakshmi Mittal South Asia Institute’s Seed for Change grant program to work with a team of teachers in the school.

Link for the report on our Pre-Texts website:
http://www.pre-texts.org/workshops/pre-texts-in-india

Students in Professor Lanfranco Aceti’s Arts of Barcelona course and Comparative Cultural Policy and Administration course at Boston University, played with Pre-Texts through Spring and Summer 2018. The workshops, facilitated by Alexandra Gaydos, Polly Lauer, and Jahnvi Singh, demonstrated the holistic nature of Pre-Texts: It meets learners at their starting point and invites them to explore a challenging text as they acquire language proficiency, high level theory, and professional development all at once, while simultaneously building an accountable community.

Link for the report on our Pre-Texts website:
http://www.pre-texts.org/workshops/pre-texts-at-boston-university

Del 16 al 18 de agosto, Agentes Culturales Colombia en asocio con Comfama realizó tres talleres de Pre-Textos en la ciudad de Medellín, Antioquia. Trabajamos con 75 profesores de múltiples condiciones (colegios públicos, privados, agentes de lectura de bibliotecas), todos parte de la familia de esta caja de compensación. El texto para estas sesiones fue un segmento de Cosmos, libro escrito por Carl Sagan. El equipo de capacitadores estuvo compuesto por Doris Sommer, Victoria Mena, Alejandro Roldán, Carlos Mayo, Regina Gutiérrez y Sergio Peñaranda.

Link for the report on our Pre-Texts website: 
http://www.pre-texts.org/workshops/pre-textos-en-medell%C3%ADn-1

Como reconocimiento en el Foro Educativo Nacional de 2017 a las mejores prácticas docentes, dos comunidades educativas en Colombia fueron merecedoras del premio UNESCO – GAC con la realización de talleres Pre-Textos. Las sesiones se realizarán a través de la Fundación Agentes Culturales Colombia la última semana del mes de agosto y la primera semana de septiembre.

¡Pronto estaremos publicando más información sobre estos talleres!

Featured

“Desde pequeña me he considerado una persona creativa, curiosa e inteligente. Estas cualidades han permitido desarrollar en mí unas inmensas ganas por aprender nuevas cosas que me ayuden a desenvolverme mejor en los distintos ámbitos de mi vida. Gracias a esto he podido alcanzar algunos méritos en mi vida académica. Uno de estos fue tener la oportunidades participar en un intercambio el año pasado a Estados Unidos.

Durante el desarrollo de este, tuvimos la maravillosa oportunidad de participar en el taller de  Pre-Textos. El cual me impactó debido a que en él pude aprender a expresar mis ideas de una forma más creativa con el también me fue posible mejorar en gran manera mi forma de explorar y comprender un texto. Al regresar y poner en práctica lo aprendido en el taller incursione en la lectura de diferentes tipos de textos tales como artículos de ciencia, libros de científicos famosos, ya que acostumbraba a leer otros tipos de género, como por ejemplo “La historia del tiempo” de Steven Hawking. Esto reafirmo mi deseo de ser una de las mejores físicas de mi amado país Colombia y del mundo.
En mi plan de vida está en trabajar en CERN (la organización europea para la investigación nuclear)  y obtener otros logros en el mundo de la ciencia. Para hacer posible este sueño anhelo contar con el plan de financiamiento de becas que ofrecen las distintas universidades y entidades; por lo cual estaré enormemente agradecida.”

Texto escrito por Gloria Guevara, estudiante de bachillerato (Quibdó, Chocó) y participante del
Taller de Pre-Textos en junio de 2017

MACRO / British School at Rome / MAAM

We are now soliciting expressions of interest for interventions in each of these four areas: Working archives; Transcultural movements; Quotidian translation; Sensory practices. These may take any form (written, visual, audio, etc.), and can emerge from any discipline or creative area of expertise, but must engage with the themes and subject of the event.

More info:
https://twitter.com/PPlay2019/status/1034003538760945664  

Please send your proposals to:
pressplay2019@gmail.com
by 19 th October 2018.

Follow us on Twitter for conference updates:
@PPlay2019