1. Latin American Network Art for Social Transformation (The Net) “ Art in underpriviledged territories trigger unexpected political answers”

2. The crisis that our Latin American societies undergo, is not a particular one: it is a global crisis. Indicators measuring poverty show that during periods of growth, neither the population living under the line of poverty experiences improvement, nor does the gap between the poorest and the richest decrease. These facts prove that the current political, economic and social system, is no longer able to generate a sustainable welfare for everybody. The answer entails a deep change, based on the building up of new values, a new culture and new laws to foster equity. New laws are mostly created as a result of powerful citizenship participation processes. Latin America has a long social participation tradition. The organizations comprising the Net further art in two ways: first, the management strategies themselves serve as innovative devices; second, organizations actively work with underpriviledged and excluded sectors of our societies. Context

3. What is the transforming power of art in its contribution to reach equity in Latin America?

4. Axes of action and conceptual developments Hands-on Projects

5. Art + Social Organization “from protest to proposal” Art applied in new democratic ways: A creative relationship with social conflicts. Access to professional training in arts in vulnerable social contexts: Art is both the end and the means.

6. 1. Art: developing creativity and symbolic break off Community art and street art become an alternative way for the common citizen to influence the public space. Social participation through art defines a certain kind of practice and social production between individuals and organizations. Whenever there is a collective construction of the public space, symmetrical relationships contributing to the generation of equity conditions arise.

7. 2. Art: the value of the intangible Art is a catalyst and a human right that guarantees access to symbolic goods. It leads to universal meaningful production while preserving the actors’ identity. It is the end and the means in the subjectivity construction. Intangible goods and social representations are at the heart of any social construction.

8. 3. Art: vulnerable contexts The organizations of the Net empower underpriviledged individuals to become cultural producers. They also encourage new ways of producing, circulating and consuming cultural goods. The transformation of the relationship between the excluded and the included is the key for social inclusion.

9. 4. Art: new pedagogies The Net organizations consider the education process as cultural alphabetization towards symmetrical interpersonal and social relationships. The educational process consists of: Action, work, knowledge socialization, reconstruction of student-teacher relationship, building up the educational space, conflict, educational process as an end in itself, differences integration, community involvement, re-examination of the teachers’ training paradigm, action –thought-emotion integration.

10. 5. Social Organization: complexity as an answer to diversity The Net fosters an artistic interdisciplinary perspective. Multisectorial alliances with other developing actors: health, environment, education, transparency in politics, human rights. Art promotes global causes: solidarity in underpriviledged contexts, Euro-Latin America cooperation. Scale production generated by personal and collective transformation: integration of diverse social actors; self integration (mind - body – emotion – spirit).

11. 6. Social Organization: effective rights Cultural rights are second generation rights. Their promotion from a global and integral perspective. Human beings are desire driven, knowledge driven, rights driven: we need Utopia! Art and social participation lead us both to pass new laws and to effectively excerise the existing ones. Move from a delegative democracy towards a participatory democracy.

12. 7. Social Organization: long term on stage Multiplying socio-cultural management models in vulnerable contexts, innovative colective actions and public space interventions. Developing new institutions derived from innovative artistic production ways. Generating conditions of equity through networking among diverse social actors. Governments and civil society articulation: know how + scaling-up management.

13. 8. Knowledge Building New ways of knowledge building based on art. Records Sistematization Conceptual development Building evidence Developing quality standards

14. www.artetransformador.net Thank you very much Power Point made by Bs. As. Management Office – Crear vale la pena