Here you can read about what activities each partner is running locally.
Project Phakama UK - London
Phakama UK have set up our online Message in a Bottle community and the first online task, to write our Message in a Bottle poem. We are hoping to run workshops in primary schools and are recruiting more young people to take part in the June meeting, and Phakama Pop-Up Festival.
Tributaries is a local project lead by Phakama with London based primary schools. Phakama will work with Archaeologist Mike Weber and a team of young artists investigating artefacts, stories and histories of the river Thames and its tributaries. The young artists will then turn the findings into music, poems, drama, painting etc. This format will be implemented through science and arts workshops in a number of primary schools around East London leading to a shared public outcome. The aim is to roll this project out across London involving larger number of primary schools actively engaging with the river Thames and its’ tributaries.
Grodzka Gate NN Theatre – Lublin
Grodzka Gate NN Theatre are promoting Message in a Bottle not only in Lublin, but throughout Poland. Grodzka Gate are organising local and nation-wide social actions, and working with history and cultural heritage through storytelling. Grodzka Gate will be recording oral history of local people in the Lublin area.
Stowarzyszenie Dla Ziemi - Lublin
Stowarzyszenie Dla Ziemi have been using bokashi balls by throwing them into local ponds, rivers and canals to improve water quality. Stowarzyszenie Dla Ziemi hope to organise larger actions of water cleaning by throwing many more bokashi balls to improve the quality of water in watercourses and ponds both in Poland and in the partners’ countries.
Universidad del Pais Vasco – San Sebastian
Universidad del Pais Vasco are planning a local project for autumn 2012 entitled Away boarders!
Away boarders is a Youth in Action project carried out within message in a bottle by students from the last year of Anthropology at the University of the Basque Country. it consists on the making of a ethnographic participatory film about the Pirate boarding carried out during the summer fiestas in Donostia. Gathering thousands of young people, the Pirate boarding is the main activity of a whole alternative program solely organised by the local youth, consisting in reaching the beach from the port on hand-made rafts. From early morning, the port of Donostia becomes an extremely crowded and intensively busy ship-building area: young people build their rafts.
Special attention is paid to environmental issues, such as using recycled materials in this task, cleaning up and recycling once the raft-boats land onto the beach. Through a joyful and highly participatory activity, young people cooperate together, help each other and gets consciousness about environmental and social issues.
Our project aims to explore this event with the assessment of professional anthropologists and filmmakers, to show the skills and abilities of Basque young people through the making of an ethnographic film by and for young people.
Escola Secundaria de Pedro Alexandrino – Lisbon
Escola Secundaria de Pedro Alexandrino have formed many partnerships with local groups, such as the Lisbon Parish Council, the Lisbon Water Museum, dance group Bellavita and other local groups.
ESPA created a performance called “Despoluashi” which is inspired by the lavadeiras de Caneças in “Aldeia da Roupa Branca”, washerwoman of Caneças in the film “Village of White Clothing” (1939, Chianca de Garcia). The film was about the women who washed the clothes of the bourgeousie in the river near Escola Secundaria de Pedro Alexandrino, and the new piece was created to teach students about the cultural and historical uses of the water.
The performance is also based on the youth and love represented in William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.
On World Water Day, March 22nd, ESPA performed “Despoluashi” at Mãe D´Água, Lisbon and were seen by the editors of American magazine “Coco Eco” who are including a feature on the project within an article on “Ecological Lisbon”.
ESPA have also performed “Despoluashi” at their school, to different year groups and teachers, and after visits and trips to the water museum and river have prepared a photographic report.
(Text by Catarina Barata e Catia Pereira)
ESPA created a performance called “Despoluashi” which is inspired by the lavadeiras de Caneças in “Aldeia da Roupa Branca”, washerwoman of Caneças in the film “Village of White Clothing” (1939, Chianca de Garcia). The film was about the women who washed the clothes of the bourgeousie in the river near Escola Secundaria de Pedro Alexandrino, and the new piece was created to teach students about the cultural and historical uses of the water.
The performance is also based on the youth and love represented in William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.
On World Water Day, March 22nd, ESPA performed “Despoluashi” at Mãe D´Água, Lisbon and were seen by the editors of American magazine “Coco Eco” who are including a feature on the project within an article on “Ecological Lisbon”.
ESPA have also performed “Despoluashi” at their school, to different year groups and teachers, and after visits and trips to the water museum and river have prepared a photographic report.
(Text by Catarina Barata e Catia Pereira)
Theatre Group U - Istanbul
Theatre Group U are working with 8 members on a regular basis, exploring the stories of the people of the city through the medium of film. Theatre Group U have been researching rivers and fountains and understanding the importance of water from a cultural perspective. Theatre Group U have connected with the partners online to gather information about environmental, geographical and cultural issues surrounding water.
Tallaght Community Arts – Tallaght (Dublin)
Tallaght Community Arts are exploring site-specific work to be created and performed in Glensamole. Working with a style of travelling storytelling called “Kamishibai” which is related to wayan kulit Indonesian shadow plays and karagoz puppet theatre, the story that Tallaght Community Arts are working on is the Irish myth of “Oison”. Tallaght Community Arts are currently recruiting young people to take part in a series of workshops, which they will then take over to the June meeting in London. Tallaght Community Arts hope to invite some of the partners to return with them to Glensamole to develop the work, which will then be performed to the Glensamole community as a site specific event.
