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In the art of revolution: integrating community arts into the existing development work of non-government organizations in Guatemala and El Salvador

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In the art of revolution: integrating community arts into the existing development work of non-government organizations in Guatemala and El Salvador

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Content IN THE ART OF REVOLUTION: INTEGRATING COMMUNIY ARTS INTO THE
EXISTING DEVELOPMENT WORK OF NON-GOVERNMENT
ORGANIZATIONS IN GUATEMALA AND EL SALVADOR

by

Xiomara Y. Cornejo

____________________________________________________________________

A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC, ROSKI SCHOOL OF FINE ARTS
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF PUBLIC ART STUDIES

May 2008

Copyright 2008 Xiomara Y. Cornejo

ii

Dedication

I would like to dedicate my work to my family, whose fighting spirit has instilled me
with the fortitude of a “Salvatrucha” warrior.

iii
Acknowledgments

It is with great pleasure that I offer my sincerest gratitude to all the
individuals who made this work possible. First and foremost, I would like to thank
the communities and NGOs in Guatemala and El Salvador who embraced and
welcomed me into their homes and organizations. The comments, concerns, and
ideas that emerged during our conversations ultimately formed the heart of my
thesis; their participation during my research process was invaluable and critical to
my work. I would also like to thank ArtCorps for their faith and support, prior to and
throughout this process. Thank you to the 2007 Summer ArtCorps and New England
Bio-labs staff, Suzanne Jenkins, Clare Dowds, Susan Foster, and of course my fellow
ArtCorps interns. I am also grateful to Blanca Estela García Hernandez for taking
the time and energy to accompany me throughout my travels to Guatemala and El
Salvador. Without her planning, guidance and advice this trip would not have been
possible. Many thanks to the ArtCorps and local community artists that participated
during the interview process particularly Maria Cristina De Leon, for directing me
during my stay in El Salvador. I would also like to acknowledge former ArtCorps
artists, Aryeh Shell, who gladly assisted me during the early development stages of
my thesis, but who ultimately played a larger and more significant role throughout
the progression of my work. I would like to extend my sincerest thanks to my
primary advisor Brent Blair. Thank you for helping me find my voice, for having
faith in my passion and my work and for always maintaining a positive outlook.
Your astounding expertise, guidance and energy fueled me throughout the entire
process. I would also like to thank my secondary advisor, Ruth Wallach, for her wise

iv
words, advice and essentially wonderful humor. Thank you for working with me; it
was a pleasure to have you as part of the team. I am also grateful to my colleagues,
the USC Public Art Studies “Poo-Pets” class of 2008, who remained in solidarity
through the good times and the bad. I would also like to thank all of my close
friends, especially Andrea LeBeouf Brown, Jason James and Kevin Campbell for
always showing interest in my work. I thank my fellow musicians of In Sepia,
Stephen Walters and Andrew Monzon, for giving me a fresh of breath air when I
needed it the most. Most importantly, I would like to thank my family. I am deeply
indebted to my sister, Kency Cornejo, for serving as a true inspiration. Thank you for
having faith in my work and for continuously challenging me to go beyond what I
believed to be possible. I thank you for your support, advice, guidance and love
throughout this entire process. I thank my mother and father, Blanca and Rene
Cornejo, my brother Rene Jr. and sister Edlin, as well as my close friend Daniel
Martinez, for their unconditional love, support and motivation. Thank you for always
welcoming me home with open arms. I appreciate the newest edition to the family,
our little miracle puppy Mhika, who became the joy of my life, charming me away
from the most stressful parts of this entire process. Last but not least, I thank God,
who encouraged me to take on this extraordinary life-changing experience and who
inspired me to write about it.

v

Table of Contents

Dedication

Acknowledgements

List of Figures

Abstract

Preface

Introduction

Chapter 1: Introduction to ArtCorps
I. Establishing Relationships between the Community and the ArtCorps
Artists

Chapter 2: NGOs in Central America
I. A Condensed History of the Social, Political and Economic
Adversities of Guatemala and El Salvador
II. 2007 Partnering NGOs
III. Community Art Partnerships: ArtCorps, Volunteer Artists and
NGOs

Chapter 3: The NGO Community Workshop
I. Incorporating Community Arts into the NGO Workshop

Chapter 4: Generating “True Generosity” through Community Art-making
I. The ArtCorps Legacy

Conclusion

Bibliography

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List of Figures

Figure 1: Children parade the puppet “Liosha” on the streets of their
neighborhood. The puppet represents their ability to fly. Source: ArtCorps,
http://www.artcorp.org/evaluation.html

Figure’s 2 & 3: Twenty doors were painted throughout the neighborhood,
depicting animals from the rainforest. Source: ArtCorps,
http://www.artcorp.org/Environment.pdf

Figure 4: A group of women make mosaic mirrors in a community workshop.
Source: ArtCorps, http://www.artcorp.org/WomenChildrenRights.pdf

Figure 5: A youth group performs a theatre skit on global warming.
Source: ArtCorps, http://www.artcorp.org/Environment.pdf

Figure 6: Paper murals were created to warn the community on the dangers of
forest fires. Source: ArtCorps, http://www.artcorp.org/Environment.pdf

Figure’s 7 & 8: The NGOs utilize Shell’s Storybooks during their community
workshops. Source: ArtCorps, http://www.artcorp.org/Environment.pdf

Figure’s 9 & 10: The NGOs perform and present their workshop to the
community. Source: ArtCorps, http://www.artcorp.org/Environment.pdf

Figure 11: An NGO member performs as the half fish half tomato character.
Source: ArtCorps, http://www.artcorp.org/Environment.pdf

Figure 12: Las Mujeres De El Bongo display their handmade purses and bags.
Source: Author, 2007. El Bongo,Guatemala

Figure 13: A corner in Zoyla’s humble home serves as a workshop for the
women to build their products. Source: Author, 2007. El Bongo, Guatemala

Figure 14: The women display their headdresses and banners.
Source: ArtCorps, http://www.artcorp.org/WomenChildrenRights.pdf

Figure 15: The women parade throughout the community carrying a banner
that reads “No More Violence Against Women.”
Source: ArtCorps, http://www.artcorp.org/WomenChildrenRights.pdf

Figure 16: Aryeh Shell created an ArtCorps Storybook for ArtCorps to utilize
during their presentations to potential NGOs and individual or group
supporters. This is the first page. Source: Author, 2007. Beverly,
Massachusetts

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Figure 17: The second page of the ArtCorps Storybook. Source: Author, 2007.
Beverly, Massachusetts

Figure 18: The final page of the ArtCorps Storybook. Source: Author, 2007.
Beverly, Massachusetts

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Abstract

In their efforts to encourage political, social and environmental
consciousness, Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) in Guatemala and El
Salvador typically subscribe to the “banking system of education” as their primary
pedagogy. The “banking system” fails to promote critical thinking within host
communities, which counters the NGOs’ goals and leaves them struggling to convey
their message. ArtCorps, a community arts organization, was created to bridge this
communication gap between many Guatemalan and Salvadoran grassroots
organizations and their targeted communities through art. By applying Paulo Freire’s
theory of Critical Pedagogy as a template, I seek to investigate how a community arts
partnership between ArtCorps and the NGOs can better empower NGOs and the
communities in underdeveloped regions. This study examines the integration of
community arts into international development work and consciousness-raising
through interviews I conducted in 2007 with participating ArtCorps volunteer artists,
partnering NGOs and community members in Guatemala and El Salvador.

ix
Preface

My interest in ArtCorps began the summer of 2006 when searching for
theatre volunteer possibilities in El Salvador through Idealist.org, an online search
system for individuals interested in volunteering around the world. I was particularly
interested in working in El Salvador, the native country of both my parents, who
migrated to the United States during the beginnings of El Salvador’s Civil War in the
late 1970s. I found ArtCorps when looking for an opportunity to create community
art projects with children in rural communities throughout El Salvador. I came to the
realization that ArtCorps was unlike any other nonprofit community arts
organization after thorough investigation. In an interview conducted in the summer
of 2007, Suzanne Jenkins, the ArtCorps program officer, views the distinguishing
quality of ArtCorps among other arts ‘for social action groups’ to include not only
making art but utilizing the art created “…to strengthen the investments that the
Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) have in the community…” She continues
by arguing that an ArtCorps partnership can result in “capacity building for the
organizations” through the community art-making process. For Jenkins, community
development in partnership with an NGO would have less effective results if
ArtCorps were to work on their own as independent social artists. She strongly
believes the outcomes of community arts partnerships with Guatemalan and
Salvadoran NGOs are direct results of the collaboration between both organizations.
I was quickly captivated by the ArtCorps mission but remained unconvinced
that such work truly existed. I often envisioned an immersion of political activism,
international development and public art in Central America, but failed to come

x
across any public art organization that truly fulfilled this vision. What type of work
would result in the engagement of international development, politics and art? In
what ways could a community arts organization, like ArtCorps, strengthen the social
work of NGOs in underdeveloped countries like Guatemala and El Salvador? Could
such community art models like ArtCorps transfer across international boundaries
over to the United States?
Captivated by the ArtCorps mission I immediately took on an internship with
ArtCorps the following summer for two months where I would oversee the new
additions to the existing ArtCorps training manual that was to be presented to the
selected ArtCorps artist volunteers for the 2008 term. My contributions included
updating the manuals information on local Guatemalan and Salvadoran culture,
incorporating technical aspects of community arts making, inserting tips on building
relationships with NGOs, and supplying procedures on group facilitation and
improving animated community dialogue. In addition, I headed the structure and
planning of the art activities for the artist retreat in July, witnessed and observed a
few volunteer applicant interviews and was present during the ArtCorps volunteer
artist selection process.
Besides my ArtCorps experiences on an administrative level, my
understanding of the work of ArtCorps radically transformed as I personally
conducted interviews in Guatemala and El Salvador with those participating in the
ArtCorps projects including NGOs, community members and community artists. It is
one scenario to intern for ArtCorps in the United States and discuss the projects
being initiated in Central America for that year, and quite another to personally visit

xi
the public art sites, the communities and the NGOs involved. Blanca Estela García
Hernandez, the Regional Director of ArtCorps in Guatemala accompanied me during
my trips. A native Guatemalan, currently residing in Guatemala City, Hernandez
generously offered her company and her guidance. We collaborated on a few
administrative ArtCorps projects during my internship with the organization but had
yet to meet in person. We had sufficient time to get to know each other, as we
attempted to conduct two to three interviews per day. We traveled for seven days by
foot, bus, boat and car through various rural and urban communities of Guatemala,
while in El Salvador I traveled on my own. My ultimate goal was to welcome
participating ArtCorps communities, NGOs, and volunteer artists, and to facilitate
casual conversations concerning their community art-making experience with
ArtCorps. The interview process ignited a dialogue between the participants. The
exchanges created a plethora of critical issues, opinions, and suggestions for the
progress of the program.
Hernandez arranged a few interviews prior to my arrival to Guatemala.
Conversely, locating the remaining interviewees, including community members,
NGOs and volunteer artists, proved to be a challenging task. I quickly found out that
we were most successful at locating the interviewees when we asked local taxi
drivers or random community members we met on the street, made various
impromptu calls to organizations, and revisited community art project sites. Except
for two occasions, the interviews were conducted without the presence of Hernandez.
They were completed throughout various locations, including: the inside of peoples
living rooms; in local coffee shops while sipping coffee; over plates of traditional

xii
Central American breakfast -- beans, cream and plantains; within neighborhood
parks; outside hotel lobbies; and my favorite -- while sitting in the front porch of an
ocean side home.
While in my internship I learned that ArtCorps distributed program
evaluations to the volunteer artists that are completed at the end of their residencies.
However, no one has been delegated to personally investigate the results of their
program. Though the evaluations ultimately benefited the development of the
program, the interviews conducted revealed that the program evaluation system often
failed to acknowledge the potential contributions of opinions and recommendations
by the community members and NGOs involved. When I returned from the trip, I
realized that I obtained invaluable information from the individuals who personally
witnessed the integration of community arts for social change into their
communities. Not only do I strongly believe this information to be imperative to the
development of my thesis, but I consider it to serve as a significant contribution to
the overall evaluation of ArtCorps mission. This point is particularly germane when I
argue that local public artists and public art administrators consider investigating the
structure of socially driven community arts organizations, like ArtCorps, when
discussing the evolution of public art in the United States.

1
INTRODUCTION
On November 8, 2007 I traveled to Central America for seven days seeking
insight into the community art-making scene in Guatemala and El Salvador through
engagement and dialogue with community members, volunteer artists, and Non-
government Organizations (NGOs) participating in ArtCorps’ community art
projects. ArtCorps is a non-profit organization that arranges and facilitates the
opportunity for volunteer professional artists to partner with NGOs in Guatemala and
El Salvador. According to ArtCorps, the work of their partnered NGOs consists
primarily of promoting social and environmental consciousness; encouraging civic
participation and promoting public health in urban and rural communities throughout
Guatemala and El Salvador. The volunteer artists contribute to the NGO’s ongoing
projects by completing a residency with the organization during which the artist
creatively communicates the NGO’s social message through community arts. The
artists utilize multiple art mediums—including theatre, puppetry, mural making,
sculpture and poetry—revitalizing the NGO’s consciousness-raising community
projects.
1

ArtCorps is one of few community art organizations focusing on Central
America -- particularly in underdeveloped countries like Guatemala and El Salvador
-- that is also based in that region. Social and economic circumstances in these two
countries have significantly limited the exposure and development of arts to the local
community. Currently, official documentation on community arts making in the rural
communities of Central America is limited or non-existent. The absence of

1
http//;www.artcorp.org

2
documentation would seem to deny the existing work of community arts
organizations like ArtCorps and their participating NGOs in Guatemala and El
Salvador. Lack of available literature ignores much needed critique and discussion
on the development of community arts practiced today, not only by organizations
like ArtCorps, but by other organizations and individual artist creating art for social
change within these regions as well.
In response to the dearth of relevant literature, therefore, I will refer to critical
discussions of socially driven community based art practices in the United States,
such as those led by educator and writer Miwon Kwon and art historian and critic
Grant H. Kester. I will begin with Kwon, whose book One Place After Another: Site-
Specific Art and Locational Identity
2
quotes the noted public artist Suzanne Lacy as
defining community based public art-making as the “New Genre Public Art”:
Dealing with some of the most profound issues of our time-toxic, waste race
relations, homelessness, aging, gang warfare, and cultural identity- a group of
visual artists has developed distinct models for an art whose public strategies
of engagement are an important part of its aesthetic language…We might
describe this as “new genre public art,” to distinguish it in both form and
intention from what has been called “public art”- a term used for the past
twenty five years to describe sculpture and installations sited in public places.
Unlike much of what has heretofore been called public art, new genre public
art-visual art that uses both traditional and nontraditional media to
communicate and interact with a broad and diversified audience about issues
directly relevant to their lives- is based on engagement.
3

Kwon utilizes “Culture in Action: New Public Art in Chicago”, a temporary
exhibition program consisting of eight community collaborations projects dispersed
throughout various Chicago neighborhoods, as an example of the need for further
researching socially conscious community based art-making in the field. All eight

2
Miwon Kwon, One Place After Another: Site-Specific Art and Locational Identity (Cambridge: The
MIT Press, 2002.), 104.
3
Ibid.

3
projects address a variety of urban issues, reflecting the social conditions of those
communities participating, including low-income housing, HIV/AIDS research and
care, workers rights, minority youth leadership, women’s achievements and ecology.
Similar to a partnership between ArtCorps and an NGO, the public artists involved in
the “Culture in Action” projects partnered with a local organization or group to
conceptualize and create the work. In addition, Kwon argues that the collaborative
community art projects of the “Culture in Action” correspond to what was identified
by art critic Arlene Raven as “art in the public interest.”
4
Kwon states that according
to Raven, art in the public interest can be identified as “activist” and
“communitarian” in spirit.
5
ArtCorps has similar concepts with its forms of
expression that include a variety of traditional media, like painting and sculpture.
Moreover, ArtCorps intensively incorporates nontraditional media, like guerilla
theatre, billboards, street art, protest actions and demonstrations, murals, dances,
posters and oral histories, among many others. Raven argued that the most
significant component of art in the public interest is its ability to forge direct
intersections with social issues, encouraging “community coalition-building in
pursuit of social justice and attempts to garner greater institutional empowerment for
artists to act as social agents.”
6
The various outcomes and results of the “Culture in
Action” community art projects provides sufficient material for the discussion and
critique of socially motivated community based art-making. For Kwon, each
community project raises critical questions regarding the development of this new
genre of public art, including examining artists’ partnerships with other organizations

4
Ibid., 105.
5
Ibid.
6
Ibid.

4
or institutions, such as an NGO, while collaboratively working with marginalized
communities. What are the implications of a collaborative relationship between a
community artist and an institution or organization? My case-in-point is ArtCorps’
artist with an NGO. I am going to utilize Kwon’s discussion as a framework to
analyze my own research regarding ArtCorps as a possible model for “social action
community arts.”
Like Kwon, Kester's research also focuses on socially-engaging practices in
art. He analyzes the new genre public art in his essay, Aesthetic Evangelist:
Conversion and Empowerment in Contemporary Community Art,
7
in which he
discusses the “emerging institutional and ideological” identity of the public artists.
Kester also examines what he refers to as “representational politics of community
arts” and like Kwon, the relationship between the artist and the community. Among
some of the critical issues concerning community art efforts that he discusses are
possible exploitation of marginalized communities by the artists and sponsoring
organizations and the dangers of a paternalistic approach when attempting to
“empower” communities. As with Kwon, Kester’s work critically analyzes
community art-making and will serve as a general framework in my own research
with ArtCorps.
Kester also strongly advocates for dialogical and participatory practices in
community art, similar to those practiced by the ArtCorps artists. Therefore, Kester’s
research remains significantly relevant to my thesis, as he touches on the values of
dialogue and communication in his book Conversation Pieces; Community and

7
Grant H. Kester, “Aesthetics Evangelist: Conversion and Empowerment in Contemporary
Community Art”, Afterimage, Vol.22 (1995), Bnet Business Network,
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2479/is_n6_v22/ai_16737233

5
Communication in Modern Art where he discusses community development efforts
through art. Kester further advocates for the understanding of art as a “process of
communicative exchange rather than a physical object.”
8
He provides project
examples that exemplify a dialogical and collaborative approach. Kester urges us to
pay attention to the qualities of interactive projects, in comparison to object-based
artwork, which is work often produced entirely by the artist and only subsequently
offered to the viewer. He concludes that this form of art-making will engender a
passive response from the viewer, resulting in a static physical product.
Kester analyzes community art-making processes by borrowing from
Brazilian educator and highly influential theorist Paulo Freire, when he describes the
conventional “banking” style-of-art in which the artist deposits an expressive content
into a physical object, to be withdrawn later by the viewer.
9
The term “banking” is
derived from what Freire defines as the “banking system of education”, in which the
educator “deposits” information into the educatee but does not promote critical
learning or consciousness. The “banking system of education” reinforces an
authoritative teacher-student relationship in and outside of school, preventing the
educatee from thinking critically for herself.
10
According to Freire, a teacher-student
relationship results in a narrative subject the teacher, and a listening object; the
student.
11
This educational system is limited to merely depositing information by the
teacher into the students. Freire’s stand on the significance of the process of
communication, as applied to the liberation of the oppressed, coincides with Kester’s

8
Grant H. Kester, Conversation Pieces: Community and Communication in Modern Art
(Berkely:University of California Press,2004.),90.
9
Ibid., 10. Kester states in his writing to borrow the term from Freire
10
Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (New York: Seabury Press, 1970), 57.
11
Ibid.

6
view on communication which is imperative to the community art-making process
with certain give-and-take qualities, shared between the artist and the community.
The philosophy and work of Paulo Freire has made profound contributions to
the field of education and the struggle for national development world-wide. It is
therefore no surprise that Kester would mention Freire’s theories in his own work
when discussing socially engaging community art efforts in America. Freire’s
writing, including Pedagogy of the Oppressed, which is considered to be one of his
most influential works, advocates for dialogical and participatory practices in
working with communities parallel to the community art projects found in Kester’s
Conversation Pieces, both Kester and Freire present arguments on the
“representational politics” of working with marginalized communities.
12
Freire’s
childhood background provides a deeper context for understanding the development
of his philosophy concerning the liberation of oppressed people and the significance
of dialogue when advocating for the empowerment of these particular groups.
Born in 1921, in Recife Brazil, Freire committed himself to the liberation of
those in the struggle against hunger at the early age of eleven. Due to starvation he
experienced episodes of listlessness and began to fall behind in school. His personal
experiences with hunger inspired him to take an oath in working towards a future
where no child would ever endure such suffering. Freire came to discover what he
refers to as the “culture of silence”
13
affecting the dispossessed. In the forward to
Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Richard Shaull discusses the “culture of
silence”:

12
Kester, “Aesthetic Evangelist”, 2.
13
Freire, Pedagogy, 10.

7
He came to realize that their ignorance and lathery were the direct product
of the whole situation of economic, social, and political domination-and of
the paternalism- of which they were victims. Rather than being encouraged
and equipped to know and respond to the concrete realities of their world,
they were kept submerged in a situation in which such critical awareness and
response were practically impossible. And it became clear to him that the
whole educational system was one of the major instruments for the
maintenance of this culture of silence.
14

According to Shaull, Freire’s travels throughout underdeveloped countries,
and his studies of educational philosophy enabled him to develop a theory for the
education of illiterates, better known as Critical Pedagogy. Freire’s practice of
Critical Pedagogy can be, in simple terms, defined as a teaching approach that
encourages critical thinking- and challenges the students to participate, resulting in
the students’ self-empowerment. Shaull states that Freire’s theory was based on the
conviction that all human beings, regardless of their intellect, and no matter how
submerged they were in the “culture of silence”, could still critically identify their
world reality through dialogue with others. According to Freire, if people were
provided with the proper tools, they could become transformers of their world.
Freire’s theory and the practice of Critical Pedagogy encouraged critical
consciousness and promoted the students’ ability to critically examine their
oppressive situation.
There is little or no scholarly work on community arts as it pertains to Central
America, therefore I refer to the works of Kwon, Kester and Freire to discuss the
theoretical foundations, which seem to support ArtCorps’ role as an advocate of
community art-making for social change in Guatemala and El Salvador. ArtCorps
utilizes community arts as a tool for critical thinking that seeks to encourage active

14
Ibid.

8
participation and problem solving by community members in underdeveloped
communities in Guatemala and El Salvador, similar to the community art projects
discussed by Kwon and Kester. This underlies both their arguments, as well as
Freire’s, about the importance of the group communication practices; both in making
socially driven community art and in the practice of the liberation of oppressed
people. I further examine ArtCorps as a community art model in Central America
using three sources. The first is Kwon’s critique of the “Culture in Action”
community art projects. The second source is Kester’s analytical discussion on
community art-making. The final source is the collection of interviews I conducted.
What are the potential contributions of community arts organizations like ArtCorps
in comparison to the more established work of their partnering NGOs when
promoting social and environmental consciousness? Applying Freire’s Critical
Pedagogy as a template of change, how can community art-making between
ArtCorps and the NGOs better empower communities in underdeveloped regions?
To what degree has ArtCorps proven its effectiveness in the push for the
empowerment of oppressed people? How may ArtCorps serve as an innovative
community arts model in potential partnerships between NGOs and community art
organizations world-wide? My research and interviews conducted will further
explore these questions as they follow the integration of community art-making into
the development work of NGOs in Guatemala and El Salvador.
In Chapter I, I explore the birth of ArtCorps from new genre public art, and
its development as a community arts organization. I continue by recounting the
travels of the current New England Biolabs Foundation (NEBF) director, Martine

9
Kellet, where she traveled to one of NEBF’s sponsored environmental NGOs in
Guatemala, during which she realized the difficulties they experience in promoting
messages of environmental conservation. This experience led to the beginning of the
ArtCorps partnership between community arts organization and NGOs in Central
America. I briefly introduce community art projects initiated by ArtCorps in
connection to children and women’s rights and environmental conservation. I
conclude by discussing the artist selection process and the relationships between the
artists and the communities in Guatemala and El Salvador.
In Chapter II I look into the background of NGOs focusing primarily on those
promoting social and environmental consciousness throughout Central America. I
include a condensed historical background on Guatemala and El Salvador,
concentrating briefly on specific examples of past social, political and economic
repression in both countries. In this chapter I introduce the 2007 ArtCorps partnering
NGOs and discuss the implications of a community arts partnership between an artist
and an organization.
According to the NGO interviews, a typical workshop presented to the
community has a particular structure. The structure often follows Freire’s banking
system of education as its primary form of pedagogy. Using specific examples of
educational workshops provided by these NGOs to their communities, in Chapter III
I analyze the NGO workshop prior to an ArtCorps community arts partnership. Next,
I examine the NGO workshop subsequent to an ArtCorps community arts
partnership. Using Freire’s Critical Pedagogy as a model, I draw a comparison
between the two.

10
In Chapter IV I discuss three selected ArtCorps community art projects. In
specific, I investigate the ArtCorps claim that a partnership between the two
strengthens the existing work of the NGO and the communities by limiting
community and NGO dependence on further outside support. I then evaluate the
outcomes of the selected community art projects and apply them to Freire’s
definition of True Generosity, where in the implementation of a liberating education,
the Pedagogy of the Oppressed is animated by “humanist”, and not “humanitarian”
generosity.
15
My conclusions follow Chapter IV.

15
Ibid., 39.

11
CHAPTER I: Introduction to ArtCorps
According to Kester, there has been a growing influence of new genre public
art since the 1960s and 70s when artists sought alternative venues for their work
outside and beyond the traditional art gallery in the hopes of encouraging more direct
engagement with the audience. He argues that recent community art projects in the
United States “draw both consciously and unconsciously on the history of urban
reform”
16
and views the 60s as a vibrant time for political expression, in which
concepts such as “empowerment” and “participatory democracy” reemerged in the
language of the community-based artist.
17
Kester discusses political protest against
the Reagan Administration, particularly in Central America, AIDS activism, the anti-
apartheid movement, and a revolt against “the market frenzy of neo-expressionism”
as giving way to an emergence of a new generation of activist artists in the 1980s.
18

He believes this emerging field has encouraged an increase in funding for
community based organizations promoting social justice and democracy over media
art, including the Lannan Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. Overall, there
has been an increase in world-wide financial support from numerous foundations for
social and environmental development work in countries like Guatemala and El
Salvador both art based and not. For ArtCorps, this support has largely come from
one source: The New England Biolabs Foundation (NEBF).
The New England Biolabs’ (NEB) website states that the NEBF originated in
1982 and was established to support grass-roots organizations that work with the

16
Kester, Conversation Pieces, 131.
17
Ibid. Kester quotes Barbara Cruishank, in a study of the origins of “empowerment” rhetoric in the
Great Society programs of the 1960’s stated in “The Will to Empower: Technologies of Citizenship
and the War on Poverty” Socialist Review 23, no.4 (1994):29-56.
18
Ibid., 126.

12
environment social change, the arts, elementary education, and science.
19
The
NEBF is an independent private foundation established in the mid-1970s in Beverly,
Massachusetts. It originated from the NEB a company that produces and supplies
recombinant and native enzymes for genomic research. The NEB laboratory, “a
cooperative laboratory of experienced scientists”, is fully dedicated to the
environment, a commitment evident in its prolific ecological practices.
20
It is no
surprise then that an environmentally-conscious business like the NEB would
produce a foundation, like the NEBF, with which it could perpetuate its stance on
environmental preservation and conservation worldwide.
In 1998 Martine Kellet, Executive Director of the NEBF, took a year-long
sabbatical leave to Guatemala and Africa where she volunteered and visited several
projects supported by the foundation. “I felt the need for renewal time,” Kellet
recalls in the official ArtCorps website.
21
In addition to her hands-on experience
with the projects, Kellet discovered what she deemed a problem. She explains:
With my grantors hat still on, I could not help but noticing how arduous it
was to convey a simple message. Ideas such as: “build latrines in your
village” or “include this leafy vegetable in your diet because you need the
iron,” or “if you will stop cutting the forest, we will train you and give you a
loan to start another business.”
22

Though Kellet acknowledged the dedication of the Guatemalan social and
environmental NGOs involved, referring to them as “committed and caring
individuals who have good ideas and intentions,”
23
she could not help but questioned
why the NGOs could not communicate their social message to their communities.

19
http://www.neb.com/nebecomm/about.asp
20
Ibid.
21
http://www.artcorp.org
22
Ibid.
23
Ibid.

13
She wondered what she could do to assist them in their efforts. It was evident to
Kellet that a communication gap existed between the grassroots organizations and
their targeted communities in Guatemala. She then recalled a successful project she
previously witnessed in Africa that promoted health issues with the incorporation of
local art and artists. Inspired by the promising success of the project in Africa, Kellet
believed a similar incorporation of art into a community project could potentially
bridge the communication break she now observed in Guatemala. Convinced that art
is a universal language understood by all human beings regardless of the language
they spoke, she began to support the idea that art could be transmitted worldwide and
could serve to “fill culture gaps,” as well as “adapt to the local culture.”
24
Soon
thereafter, Kellet returned to Biolabs, enthusiastic and eager to present her idea to the
NEBF trustees in the form of a formal presentation. Her proposal was well received
and the project was quickly named ArtCorps by a fellow trustee member after Kellet
explained the project would be “just like the Peace Corps.”
25

The first ArtCorps project took place in 2000, in Punta Manabíqué,
Guatemala.
26
Claudia Missana, the first ArtCorps artist, worked alongside an
environmental organization called FUNDARY. Since then, the ArtCorps artists have
created numerous art projects, targeting communities in both Guatemala and El
Salvador that tackle various social issues. For instance, there was a puppet-making
project where one artist instructed fifteen disabled children on the art of puppet
making. Together they created a puppet they later named Liosha. According to
former ArtCorps artist, the puppet served as a symbol of voice, one that could speak

24
Ibid.
25
Ibid.
26
Punta Manabíqué is a peninsula near Puerto Barrios, Guatemala and Belize.

14
to the community on its potentials. The community observed the children and the
artist parade Liosha down the street as it claimed that they too could fly (Figure 1).
Other artists, in collaboration with local youth, created a magazine, with illustrations
to express and advocate for their rights as children. The artist then distributed 700
copies throughout the community, and in 19 villages. Mural making remains a
favorite among the ArtCorps artists. In Guatemala, for example, a total of 120 youth
and children collaborated on a mural that conveyed a vision of their ideal world. In
other projects local children painted the doors of twenty homes (Figure 2). The
children decorated their doors with colorful images of animals from the jungle as a
reminder of the significance of environmental conservation (Figure 3).
Other ArtCorps projects have been centered on gender and women’s issues.
For example, theatre skits have frequently been used to educate the community on
the consequences of macho behavior as it affects women and their families.
Additional projects have been using art to create a social network and support space,
such as meetings at the local library, where women have created beautiful mosaic
mirrors while discussing relevant social issues (Figure 4).
Environmental concerns like Global Warming seem to have been most
effectively addressed through the performing arts (Figure 5). The message has been
able to reach greater audiences through theatre. For example in the First Annual
Youth Theatre Festival, the youth performed the play throughout various
communities. Paper murals created by the children were posted all over town as part
of an arts campaign to raise awareness on the dangers of forest fires (Figure 6). One
artist even focused on establishing a natural dye workshop to educate the community

15
on the found natural elements of the rainforest. These are a few examples of
numerous ArtCorps projects that have merged the visual and performing arts with
the communities' social concerns in an attempt to foster social consciousness and
change.

16
(I) Establishing Relationships between the Community and the ArtCorps Artist
Kwon refers to a “home team advantage”
27
in two “Culture in Action”
community artists; local Chicago community groups Haha and Manglano-Ovalle in
her analysis of the projects. For Kwon, the key to their sustainability is due to their
“intimate and direct knowledge of their respective neighborhoods and those living in
them.”
28
Both groups had already established relationships with their communities
and were long-time residents of Chicago, not to mention members of their local
community groups. Kwon’s notion of intimate and direct knowledge as key to a
continuing relationship between the artists and their communities brings up an
important issue in the ArtCorps selection process that deserves further examination.
While ArtCorps has presented various changes since its inauguration in 1999,
such as providing residencies for volunteer artists in both Guatemala and El
Salvador, increasing the number of volunteer artists, and extending the artists’
residency stay from three months to nine months, there are still more opportunities.
The majority of the artists selected to volunteer, at least for the 2007 term, were
foreign to either country; the closest to a native was a Guatemalan born artist who
moved to the United States when she was seven. For the majority, this would be their
first living and working experience with communities in Guatemala or El Salvador.
ArtCorps prepares artist packages in an attempt to assist the volunteer artists in
becoming familiar with their assigned sites prior to their arrival, which includes
historical backgrounds, traditions, holidays, language, politics, geography and
customs pertaining to each country.

27
Kwon, One Place After, 134.
28
Ibid., 132.

17
Furthermore, ArtCorps can not assume that through reading these packages
the artists will gain the knowledge needed to build intimate relationships with their
communities. Instead, ArtCorps can only hope that the artist will take the initiative to
personally build these relationships during their nine month stay. Although the
ArtCorps artists are not required to work on the weekends, they are strongly
encouraged to participate in community events, neighborhood traditions or local
celebrations as part of their assimilation into the community, not just as visiting
artists partnering with local NGOs, but as community members themselves. A
number of ArtCorps artists establish strong ties with their communities, whether
through the art-making process or by participating in local neighborhoods events,
fully immersing themselves in the traditions and cultures of their neighborhoods. Of
course, not all artists who volunteer can fully integrate themselves within their
communities, regardless of extended residencies or of partaking in local events and
often find themselves struggling to maintain even straightforward relationships with
the members of their communities at some point in their residency. For example,
even the 2007 artist born in Guatemalan who moved to the United States, a few
months into her residency had not gained full acceptance from the community. It
took some time for the community to fully embrace her as one of their own. This
came as a surprise to ArtCorps, considering she was one of the only artists with
cultural ties to her assigned site. However, she was primarily raised in the United
States and like many other artists, was seen as an outsider. Kwon reiterates the
importance of the relationship between the artists and the communities as playing a

18
central role in the logistic and creative possibilities of the collaboration.
29

According to Kwon, “For many critics, the success or failure of a community-based
art project rests precisely on the artist’s status as either a sited insider (=success) or
an unsited outsider (= failure).”
30
Even though Kwon acknowledges that the creative
process is far “more complex”
31
then this formula allows I believe that the formula
can be applied to the work of ArtCorps, which has yet to receive an artist’s
application from a local Guatemalan or Salvadoran.
Unlike the previously mentioned artists and art groups selected to participate
in the “Culture in Action” project, who are long-term residents involved in local
community organizations, the ArtCorps artist volunteer is most often a foreigner and
sometimes a first time visitor to the selected sites. In no manner have they been
previously active in the neighborhood, or affiliated with any of the community
groups with which they intend to build working relationships. Is it reasonable to
assume that foreign artists can properly assimilate into their assigned communities
within a nine month time frame, particularly when they are working alongside an
NGO with predetermined agendas?
While ArtCorps works considerably hard to imbue the artist with a sense of
familiarity with their assigned sites, what they have yet to successfully accomplish is
to establish an artist’s selection process that is easily accessible to native Guatemalan
and Salvadoran community artists. Ideally, these artists would have already
established working relationships with their communities, but have not yet had the
means or support to continue their community art efforts. In order for an individual

29
Ibid., 135.
30
Ibid.
31
Ibid.

19
to apply as an ArtCorps artist they must complete an initial screening form online.
If they meet the basic eligibility requirements, ArtCorps will invite them to complete
another online application and submit a resume with samples of their work through
e-mail. The applications are accepted in two rounds and the finalist in each round is
invited to have a telephone or personal interview with the selection committee.
32

When asked if the selection process was open to artists from Guatemala and El
Salvador, Clare Dowds, Executive Director of ArtCorps responded with the
following, “Yes-we do not specifically market to every country, but our listings on
websites are international and open to all.” The current artists’ selection process does
not prohibit local Guatemalan or Salvadoran artists to apply, and yet I believe it
remains impractical for a number of local artists to participate, mainly because it
requires the applying artists to have internet and phone access throughout periods of
the selection process. I agree with Kwon when she argues that having an artist work
from the inside does not necessarily guarantee effective results, but that this
nevertheless provides the local artist with what she defines as a “head start in terms
of the familiarity with their area of operation- its geographical configuration, its
history, its available resources, its constituencies.”
33

While ArtCorps does not demand a certain number of completed art projects
from their volunteer artist by the end of their residency; productive time management
is encouraged and monitored throughout the year. Inviting local artists to serve as
volunteers could possibly eliminate the time focused entirely on adapting non-local
artists to new environments, not to mention the time and resources spent by building

32
http://www.artcorp.org
33
Kwon, One Place After, 135.

20
relationships with community groups and NGO staff, seeking local resources and
gaining the trust of the community. The residency of local volunteers could shift the
focus away from research and towards the implementation of the community art
projects, smoothing the progress for the volunteer artists, the communities and the
NGOs. Furthermore Kwon argues that the local artist is most often identified with
the community, while the outside artist is associated with the institution. Because the
artists work in partnerships with the NGOs they are most often identified with the
NGO. If the ArtCorps artist is viewed as an outsider, their potential connection with
their assigned communities will largely depend on the existing personal and working
relationships between the community and their local NGO. For ArtCorps a
constructive personal and working relationship between the community and their
NGO can work in favor of the arriving ArtCorps artist.

21
CHAPTER II: NGOs in Central America
Jude L. Fernando and Alan W. Heston Fernando, editors of a special issue of
The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science titled “The
Role of NGOs in Charity and Empowerment”, write in the introduction that NGOs
are often commonly identified as, “voluntary associations,” “nonprofit
organizations,” “nongovernmental development organizations,” “new social
movement organizations,” “peoples organizations,” and “grassroots support
organizations.”
34

The growth of NGOs in Latin America has continuously evolved since the
time of political and economic shifts in the 1980’s, according to The Economics and
Politics of NGOs in Latin America, by Carrie A. Meyer, who writes that since then,
“NGOs had already taken firm root in Latin America.”
35
In countries with Catholic
Church charities, NGOs participation can be dated as far back as the 1930s. U.S
Private Voluntary Organizations (PVOs) began their work in Latin America during
the mid-1950s in efforts to coordinate relief after World War II., while foundations
like the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations and the U.S Agency for International
Development (USAID) funded early NGO research and the Alliance for Progress
during the 1960’s. According to Meyer, increased funding of NGOs in Latin
America was encouraged due to the repressive military regimes of the 1960’s and
1970’s, with particular focus on those providing alternative economic development
plans. Meyer writes that the emergence for charity-oriented NGOs in Central

34
Fernando, Jude l., Alan W. Heston “The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social
Science; The Role of NGOs in Charity and Empowerment”, volume 554 (1997):10.
35
Carrie A. Meyer, The Economics and Politics of NGOs in Latin America (London: Praeger,
1999),24.

22
America coincides with a series of natural disasters, including an earthquake in
Nicaragua in 1972 and Guatemala in 1976, as well as hurricanes in Honduras in
1975.
36
The 1980’s saw an explosion of NGOs in Central America. Meyer quotes
Peter Sollis
37
in which he reports that, “by 1989 there where over 700 NGOs in
Guatemala; in 1990 there where 300 Nicaraguan development NGOs; and by 1992
there were over 700 Salvadoran, development institutions and associations, over half
funded after 1985.”
38

In discussing the NGO and the international community, Fernando and
Heston claimed that the NGOs were considered “expressions of the people or civil
society,”
39
because they critiqued national government practices. They argue that
while the assistance provided by the NGOs was marginal in relation to the economic,
political, and social problems, nevertheless, “they have been particularly successful
in initiating dialogue about and creating awareness of the various social issues in the
national and international arena.”
40

36
Ibid., 44.
37
Ibid., 45.
38
Ibid.
39
Fernando, and Heston, “The Annals”,18
40
Ibid.

23
(I) A Condensed History of the Social, Political and Economic Hardships of
Guatemala and El Salvador
Throughout its history, Central America has endured various social, political
and economic adversities that continue to effect its population to this date.
Neighboring countries Guatemala and El Salvador share a common history of
repression, inequitable distribution of land, civil war and numerous human rights
violations. In El Salvador, for instance, a coffee elite better known as “Las 14
Familias”
41
controlled a vast majority of the country’s resources in the late
nineteenth century. According to John A. Booth, Christine J. Wade and Thomas W.
Walker in Understanding Central America, the peasants were outraged by the
legitimized theft of their land and attempted, unsuccessfully, to mobilize as a people.

42
An “ill-coordinated” peasant uprising in January 1932 was crushed by the
landowners and the government resulting in a massacre of over 30,000 peasants
better known as “La Matanza.”
43
Guatemala has also endured a history of unequal
land distribution and was considered the most extreme case in Central America,
according to the 1979 Agricultural Census.
44
Massacres and other atrocities were
committed against the indigenous population, including mass murders of entire
villages by the Guatemalan army who accused the peasants of sympathizing with the
leftist guerillas during the 36-year civil war. The growing social, political and
economic repression in both Guatemala and El Salvador, led large numbers of

41
The 14 families (From here on after, I translate all Spanish words and interviews into English).

42
Booth, John A, Christine J Wade, Thomas W. Walker, Understanding Central America; Global
Forces, Rebellion, and Change (Colorado: Westview Press, 2006),96.
43
The Mass Murders
44
Ibid., 119-120.

24
peasants into organized political opposition. Military regimes soon responded, and
became increasingly involved in the murders and disappearances of those involved.
In the 1970’s, the Salvadoran government, endorsed by the United States, formed “El
Escuadrón de la Muerte.”
45
As Booth, Wade and Walker state, “Statistics convey
little of the intensity and nature of governmental abuse of human rights in El
Salvador.”
46
They consider the following violations to have been commonplace:
…searches of persons and residencies on a massive scale; arbitrary,
unmotivated and appealable arrest by secret police/military agencies;
widespread and systematic use of physical and psychological torture or
intimidation; violent kidnappings…official refusal to provide information
about detainees; judicial corruption; extremely poor prison
conditions…government antagonism toward humanitarian, human rights, and
relief agencies; intimidation and harassment of prisoners or released prisoners
and of their families…
47

In Guatemala, the Historical Clarification Commission (CEH) issued a report
in 1999 titled Guatemala: Memory of Silence,
48
which found that more than 200,000
died in the war, while as many as 1.5 billion remain missing or displaced. As much
as 83 percent of those victims were of the Mayan Indigenous community. The horror
of El Salvador’s 12 year civil war not only includes the deaths of 70,000 people but
according to Booth, Wade and Walker, is recognized for the strategic types of torture
used by the military and police including the following:

Lengthy uninterrupted interrogations during which the prisoner is denied
food and sleep; electrical shocks; application of highly corrosive acids to the
prisoners body; hanging of prisoners by the feet and hands…introduction of
objects into the anus; threats of rape; threats of death; stimulation of death of
the prisoners by removing him from the cell, blindfolded and tied, late at
night, and firing shots (towards the prisoner but) into the air…among the
thousands of murdered detainees, the signs of torture reach uncommon

45
The Death Squad
46
Ibid., 102.
47
Ibid.
48
Ibid., 128.

25
extremes of barbarism: dismemberment (of various types), mutilation of
diverse members, removal of breast and genitals, decapitation…and leaving
of victims’ remains in visible and public places.
49

A large number of Guatemalan and Salvadoran residents fled their countries
during these horrendous times, while those who remained were left to deal with the
aftermath of war, an unstable economy, continuous unequal distribution of the
countries’ resources, discrimination against the Indigenous communities, barriers
towards civic participation and mobilization, and a growing gang crisis among youth.

49
Ibid. A translation by Booth, Wade and Walker from the Committee of Human Rights in El
Salvador, First Congress of Human Rights in El Salvador (San Salvador, El Salvador: CDHES,
November 1984), 30-31.

26
(II) 2007 Partnering NGOs
In 2007, four NGOs in Guatemala and El Salvador welcomed an ArtCorps
volunteer artist into their organizations. The participating NGOs included Save the
Children (STC), The Reicken Foundation in Guatemala, Fundación Hermano
Mercedes Ruiz (FUNDAHMER) and Asociacion Mangle in El Salvador. ArtCorps
searches for the following qualities in partnering NGOs:
50

• Commitment to participatory development--working in collaboration with
communities towards locally sustainable solutions
• Reputation for offering appropriate and effective solutions to local
development problems
• Openness to improving their outreach and education through art
• Financial and institutional capacity to support an artist during his or her
residency (including room and board, management, local transportation,
providing help to artist in emergencies, etc.)
• Willingness to pursue joint funding opportunities
• Capacity to expand the number of artists in the future as appropriate
• Commitment to planning and evaluation
• Interest in working together for the long term (minimum 3-5 years)
The STC Guatemala official website, states that it originated in 1999, three
years after the Peace Agreement.
51
The STC website states numerous regions of
Guatemala remained underdeveloped and affected by decades of conflict. It was in
these regions that STC began initiatives to improve the lives of the children and

50
http://www.artcorp.org
51
http://www.savethechildren.org/countries/latin-america-caribbean/guatemala.html

27
families. The work of STC focuses on education, hunger and malnutrition,
emergency preparedness and child and reproductive health. The Reicken Foundation
provides poor communities in Guatemala with community libraries. In addition to
books, free internet service, and access to new technology, the libraries serve as
community centers for leadership training and service, such as carpentry workshops,
parenting classes, reading promotion, youth leadership workshops, and internet
research instruction.
52
FUNDAHMER works with the impoverished communities in
El Salvador, as a social organization of Christian inspiration, without partisan or
religious affiliation. The official website states that FUNDAHMER, “…facilitates
processes of biblical formation, in theology…in human rights, in risk mitigation; in
the process of empowerment and community accompaniment…as an effective
alternative against poverty and the deterioration of the environment.”
53
Asociacion
Mangle aims to progressively transform the social and economic conditions to lift
living standards of the people in El Salvador. According to its website, democratic
participation, respect of human rights, learning from experience, and ownership of
ones community are some of their foundational principles.
54

52
http://riecken.org
53
http://fundahmer.org.sv/index.html
54
http://bajo-lempa.org

28
(III) Community Art Partnerships; ArtCorps, Volunteer Artists, and NGOs
There is scarce documentation on existing community art partnerships
between arts organizations and NGOs in Latin America, while “design team”
55

collaborations between community artists and architects or other professionals has
existed in the United States since the 1980s. The architect/artists partnerships, as
Kwon states, became heavily criticized in the field of community arts for its
“formulaic and restrictive” approach in collaborating with design professionals,
ultimately preventing artists, particularly those interested in realizing work in the
public realm, from initiating and leading their own projects to choosing their own
public sites.
56
Since then a number of community art efforts, including the projects of
“Culture in Action” in Chicago and similar on site, neighborhood installation work
by “In Public: Seattle 1991”, strive towards complete elimination of the partnerships
between architects and artists in the public art process.
57

Kwon defines a model where the artists are paired with existing organizations
as “perhaps the most prevalent in community-based public art today.”
58
The
organizations, which Kwon calls sited communities, “have clearly defined identities
in the sense of having established locational bases, modes of operation, or a shared
sense of purpose.”
59
As evidence, Kwon discusses the significant contributions of the
partnership between Sculpture Chicago and “Culture in Action” projects when she
writes:

55
Kwon, One Place After, 111.
56
Ibid., 103-104.
57
Ibid., 104.
58
Ibid., 120.
59
Ibid.

29
In the end, Sculpture Chicago was not only instrumental in forging these
relationships; it served as the indispensable mediator between the artists and
the local groups, especially during periods of the artists’ absence from
Chicago (which was most of the time of their yearlong affiliations with
“Culture in Action.”
60

For ArtCorps, the community arts partnership is stretched even further,
encompassing not only the working relationships between the community artist and
the designated NGO, but ArtCorps. Unlike “Culture in Action”, where the local
organization serves as a mediator between the artists and the selected communities,
ArtCorps serves as a mediator between the NGO and the volunteer artists for that
year. To what extent is ArtCorps successful in its mediating role, considering the fact
that it is geographically based in the United States and not in Central America? The
organization is lead by two individuals in Massachusetts; Claire Dowds, Executive
Director and Suzanne Jenkins, Program Officer. Hernandez, who agreed to
accompany throughout certain points of my trip, is the Regional Director of
ArtCorps in Guatemala.
While both Dowds and Jenkins are based in the United States, they manage
to travel to selected sites throughout the year in order to oversee the development of
the projects, the work of the artists in the communities, and the overall working
relationship between the volunteer artists and their assigned NGOs. Because of
financial limitations endemic to most non-profit organizations, the visits to the sites
are but a handful, leaving ArtCorps to rely primarily on other means of
communication, such as the internet and the cell phone. However, the artists usually
face limited communication, a situation particularly exacerbated for those working in

60
Ibid., 121.

30
rural communities in Guatemala or El Salvador. Herein lies the central role of the
ArtCorps Regional Director, Hernandez, who is located on site in Guatemala.
Having an ArtCorps representative in Central America can provide more effective
mediation between the NGO and the artist, but is having just one representative in
only one of the participating countries enough to get the job done?
In 2007, Hernandez served as a mediator and ArtCorps representative for a
total of six artists; two in El Salvador and four in Guatemala. There is neither an
official ArtCorps headquarters in Guatemala nor El Salvador for Hernandez to work
from, or for the artists to present their concerns. Instead, Hernandez maintains
communication with the artists and the NGOs through phone calls, internet and a
small number of personal visits throughout the year. As I discovered, traveling to
each site in order to conduct my interviews took numerous hours and sometimes an
entire day, not to mention the high cost of transportation, particularly when you
travel to remote communities. It is impossible for Hernandez to effectively reach
each artist or NGO every time they have a complaint or problem. There is not
enough time or money available in the ArtCorps budget for her to do so. Another
issue arises with having only one regular representative for ArtCorps in Central
America, particularly in a collaborative process where there is more likely to be a
clash of personalities and differences of opinions. What happens when an artist has a
stronger working and personal relationship with say Jenkins in the United States,
then Hernandez in Guatemala? How can a long-distance working relationship offer
support to an ArtCorps artist or NGO? Having a headquarters for ArtCorps in both
Guatemala and El Salvador seems ideal when addressing these issues but would

31
require more funds for building two new offices and hiring of additional staff,
something ArtCorps cannot financially support at this moment.
During my internship with ArtCorps it became clear that artists can easily
experience a variety of difficulties when communicating with their assigned NGOs.
In the past artists expressed concerns in having difficulties addressing differences,
resolving conflicts or properly communicating with the assigned NGO. This is not
surprising, since for some NGOs, this was their first community arts collaboration
and the first collaborative arts effort for a number of volunteer artists accustomed to
working on an individual basis. For example, in an interview I conducted with
Maria Christina De Leon, a 2007 ArtCorps artist in El Salvador, she advised
ArtCorps regarding her living arrangements in the offices of FUNDAHMER, “Yo le
diría a ArtCorps…que traten que la artista no viva en la fundación.”
61
In the case of
FUNDAHMER in El Salvador, the ArtCorps artist is offered room and board in the
foundations main office that also serves as a hostel to individuals volunteering with
the organization. Although she states to have had a relatively good experience with
FUNDAHMER, she brings up an issue concerning certain members of her partnering
NGO who did not fully understand and appreciate the work she accomplished as a
community artist, and felt her presence to be a hindrance in the organization, which
they believed would force the NGO to “waste” their limited funds on her food and
shelter. She concludes by recommending that the ArtCorps artist be independent
from the organization to prevent these situations from occurring in the future. What
seemed to be the root of the problem was a lack of understanding on behalf of a few,

61
“I would tell ArtCorps…try not to have the artists live in the foundation.”

32
though not all, the NGO members, who could not comprehend why there was a
need to incorporate a community artist into their organization.
If ArtCorps takes the lead in preparing the artists before they begin their work
with the NGOs, both prior to their residency during the selection process and at the
beginning of their term through an artists welcome retreat, who is left to prepare the
NGOs for the arrival of the community artists into their organization? Should this
responsibility even lie at the hands of ArtCorps, or should the NGO take the
initiative to prepare its staff members for the arrival of the volunteer artists?
While serving my internship, ArtCorps staff often discussed ways of
facilitating conflicts between NGO and their ArtCorps artists such as NGO
workshops, retreats or welcome packages similar to those offered to the artists. In my
opinion this seemed like a wonderful and yet idealistic solution. Two issues that
came to mind were time and money. ArtCorps is a small organization that is
understaffed, and, therefore, limited in their ability and time to train and prepare the
NGOs. This would mean holding a very elaborate instructional session for a number
of NGO employees or traveling to various rural and urban communities spread
throughout Guatemala and El Salvador in order to personally reach each staff
member. I personally found interviewing the NGO staff to be somewhat of a
scavenger-hunt, especially since no single NGO seemed close to another and each
one seemed to be only further from the first. Financially, ArtCorps would have to
sacrifice funds allocated for art materials, administrative responsibilities, artist’s
retreats and airline travel for the artists arriving and departing from their sites. It is

33
even more farfetched to expect the NGO to gather the funds necessary for what
might be considered an unnecessary expense, instead of a vital investment.
ArtCorps currently is unable to offer any type of formal training to an NGO
in preparation for collaborative creative projects, particularly when they are
unfamiliar with the process. Thus far, ArtCorps included a new section into the 2008
artists’ training manual titled “Relationships with NGOs.” The new edition to the
training manual tried to manage expectations by explaining that there is not a lot of
support and that each situation would be different. It included documents focusing on
issues such as workplace conflict-resolution, improving listening and communicating
skills, working effectively as part of a team as well as resolving differences in an
approach to promoting mediation. Unfortunately, no results reflecting the insert of
“Relationship with NGOs” as tool in establishing better working relationships
between ArtCorps artist and NGOs can be thoroughly evaluated until the end of the
2008 term when the artist and NGOs have completed their working partnerships.
ArtCorps attempts to address all concerns by maintaining open
communication with the artist and the NGOs on a weekly, sometimes daily basis and
in organizing a yearly artists’ retreat in Guatemala during the month of July. The
artists’ retreat is not only a short vacation opportunity for the ArtCorps artists but
serves as an open platform where the artists are encouraged to freely discuss any
complications they are experiencing in their residency. It is ArtCorps’ objective that
each artist leaves with a sense of support, encouragement by their fellow peers and
possibly solutions that can address and resolve their concerns. My summer internship
position with ArtCorps took place during the period of the artists’ retreat in 2007,

34
where I assisted ArtCorps in structuring theatre games and activities for the retreat
that are intended to facilitate group discussions. One of the major issues to come out
during the discussions was, not surprisingly, the working and personal relationships
between the artists and certain members of their assigned NGOs.
Not all artists shared this concern, since a number of individuals did establish
satisfying working and personal relationships with their NGOs; nor did all
complaints derive solely from the artists but some of the concerns came from the
NGOs which reported conflicts with their assigned artists. It is ArtCorps role to bring
together community artists and NGOs in Guatemala and El Salvador, it is one of
ArtCorps distinguishing qualities as an art for social change organization and yet, it
takes an unprecedented amount of work and patience in order to maintain that
reputation.

35
CHAPTER III: The NGO Community Workshop
Fernando and Heston conclude that most of the first generation NGOs were
influenced by Paulo Freire’s writings and that the development programs of these
NGOs were interconnected with Freire’s approach in mobilizing the oppressed
through education.
62
It seemed evident throughout the interviews, that education was
highly valued by the NGOs as an effective tool in promoting social and
environmental consciousness.
63
Their value in education led them to construct
educational workshops with the communities, where lectures were given on social
and environmental matters.
The first person interviewed was Gilberto Leonel Soria Lem, current
Technico
64
of STC in El Estor, Guatemala. When discussing the structure of a
traditional STC workshop prior to an ArtCorps partnership, he states, “Antes…solo
era de dar charlas, capacitaciones y capacitaciones pero nunca llevarlo a la
practica.”
65
When asked if he had ever personally participated in a STC community
workshop he responded with the following, “Yes, yes…Estaban muy tímidas, muy
dejadas, no eran activas.”
66
During the interview, Lem further broke down the
NGOs process as it invited the community to an upcoming workshop,“Se les enviaba
nota a decirles que tal fecha, tal hora, estamos llegando ala comunidad y queremos
que estén reunidos todos los que puedan. …Nos concentramos en una comunidad y

62
Fernando, and Heston “The Annals”, 18.
63
Due to time constraints during my seven day trip to Guatemala and El Salvador, only two of the
four 2007 partnering NGOs were personally interviewed; this includes Save the Children (STC) in
Guatemala and FUNDAHMER in El Salvador
64
Technical director
65
“Before it was just lectures, workshop after workshop, but never taken into practice.”
66
“Yes, yes. They (the workshops) were very timid, run down, and not active.”

36
allí empezamos la intervención.”
67
Lem states the workshops were conducted in
schools, churches, hallways and “Si hubiera salon, pues en el salon.”
68
Based on my
interviews, a typical workshop conducted by the NGO consisted of a meeting room,
set similar to a classroom, in which community members would congregate while
NGO administrators and staff would conduct informative educational sessions.
It was evident that the spreading of knowledge is key in raising
consciousness throughout the NGO’s sites. Unfortunately, the workshops, though
providing crucial information and backed with the good intentions of the NGOs,
were not always successful in their attempts. Lem reported one problem that
occurred quite often during a STC workshop; a language barrier existed between
those conducting the workshops and members of the Indigenous community
attending the workshops. He discusses the issue in detail, “Por ejemplo aquí en esta
área, nos a costado mucho con el idioma, ósea con la gente indígena. Y como se ha
trabajado con la gente indígena, el idioma es un constante obstáculo grande para
ellos.”
69
Guatemala is considered to have the largest Indigenous population in
Central America, including the K’iche, Kaqchikel, Mam, Q’eqchi and Mayan among
others.
70
Workshops on social and environmental concerns, inevitably fails to
communicate its message if a language barrier exist between the presenter and its
participants, eventually preventing effective communication, and possible dialogue
between both parties.

67
“We would send a note out letting the community know, that on this date, at this time we will be
arriving and we would like whoever could attend to be there…We would concentrate ourselves in one
community and begin the intervention.”
68
“If there were rooms in the schools, well then in the rooms.”
69
“For example, in this area, language has been a major issue, particular with the Indigenous
community. And since we work with the Indigenous community, language is a constant obstacle for
them.”
70
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guatemala

37
Lem explains that the educational background of some of the participants
was an additional obstacle for the NGO, “El idioma y la educación porque la mayor
parte de señoras no tienen educación, o sea no es tan formal, porque educación ni
modo lo traen desde la casa. No han estudiado entonces no pueden leer ni
escribir.”
71
As disclosed in the interviews, the majority of the information provided
by the NGO was either presented verbally, as in a lecture, or in written form printed
on plain white poster board paper or on chalkboards. Topics discussed during the
workshops, including women’s and children’s rights, environmental conservation
and civic participation, were unrecognizable to those who could not read the printed
material, and as a result could not fully grasp the significance of the workshops.
In Livingston, Guatemala, I met with another STC administrator, Ocelia
Flores. She agreed that there where some concerns with the format of the NGO
workshop, particularly in presenting educational information to children, “Para el
adulto, el niño es niño, y el niño tiene que hacer lo que el adulto quiere. Pensando,
esto es bueno para ti y allá quedo. Sin importar que al niño también no sea lo
correcto para el.”
72
I could imagine how difficult it was for the NGOs to maintain
the active attention of large groups of adults when lecturing on complicated social
and political themes, let alone maintaining the interest of a child. Fellow colleague,
Juan Alfredo Morales González, Program Director of STC in Rió Dulce, admitts
that, “Los técnicos deben tener habilidad para dibujar, para transmitir, verdad, para

71
“Language and education. Because the majority of the women do not have an education, at least a
formal education. What they do have they’ve learned from their homes. They have not studied
therefore cannot read or write.”
72
“For the adult, a child is a child. The child has to do what the adult tells him to do. Thinking, this is
good for you and that’s that!”

38
jugar. Pero a veces no lo tienen y entonces era muy difícil transmitir, y que el niño
comprendiera.”
73

When I traveled to El Salvador, I spoke with Veronica Del Carmen Medrano,
a member of FUNDAHMER’s youth formation group in Jardines de Colon. Based
on her experience in attending a typical NGO workshop, she revealed:
Era mas información…como una exposición. Los beneficios, el negativo y lo
positivo de un tema. Ay cosas que se deben trabajar así…pero yo siento que
en el espacio de jóvenes no es como… con los jóvenes es difícil trabajar
así…Por nuestra misma energía y inquietud digamos no se pude tener un
joven por mas de dos, tres horas sentado, escuchándote…El problema es ese,
que en otros temas…el medioambiente, el problema de la basura…de la
política de el mismo estado…Pero era mas como tema, de hablar y hablar y
ellos a escuchar. Entonces ay momentos en que los jóvenes se duermen
casi.”
74

The information provided by the interviewed members of the NGOs,
including one youth community member, regarding the common structure of an
NGO workshop prior to an ArtCorps partnership, support Freire’s critique of
traditional education as a primary vehicle in promoting social consciousness and
critical thinking. Freire believed that in order to strive towards the reconciliation of
liberating education, we must first begin with the teacher-student contradiction, “by
reconciling the poles of the contradiction so that both are simultaneously teachers
and students.”
75
This applies to members, including children, participating in the
NGOs workshops. Flores brought up a valid point when discussing the authoritative
relationship between adults and children in an educational setting. Because the

73
An NGO technician must have the ability to draw, to transmit, you know, to play. But sometimes
they don’t and that made it difficult to transmit the message, and that the child would understand it.”
74
That was the problem, that in other themes…the environment, problems with the trash…the politics
of the state. But it was more like them talking and talking on a theme, and the youth listening. In those
moments youth members were practically falling asleep.”
75
Freire, Pedagogy, 59.

39
participants are not adults, NGO workshop conductors may fail to credit their
young participants with the inherent ability to actively respond and contribute to the
social and political topics discussed. It is unfortunate, that the workshops conducted
for groups of children give way to authoritative teacher-student relationships
between the presenter and the participants. This becomes what Freire identified as
the “banking” concept of education where according to him “knowledge is a gift
bestowed by those who consider themselves knowledgeable upon those whom they
consider to know nothing.”
76

Freire critiques what he calls the narrative style of education: “A careful
analysis of the teacher-student relationship at any level, inside or outside school,
reveals its fundamentally narrative character…The contents whether values or
empirical dimensions of reality, tend in the process of being narrated to become
lifeless and petrified. Education is suffering from narration sickness.”
77
One youth
community member, Medrano referred to the NGO workshops as “expositions”,
where the youth groups were given numerous amounts of information, sitting and
listening for hours, while the speaker talked and talked. She jokingly added that on
some occasions, the information was so excessive that youth members attending the
workshop began to fall asleep! Instructions, lectures, and monologues presented in
these workshops failed to actively engage the participant. Those leading the
workshops were simply depositing information to be mechanically memorized into
the participants, who served as “containers and receptacles to fill.”
78
This could
result in the student’s lack of critical thought, for, as Freire believed the more the

76
Ibid., 58.
77
Ibid., 57.
78
Ibid., 58.

40
students serve as depository items, the less they develop their critical thinking
skills which would have resulted in “their intervention in the world as transformers
of that world.”
79
He argues that if the student’s role remains passive their passivity
will become a form of adaptation. Lem’s comments on the language barrier between
the Indigenous community and the NGOs conducting the workshops, as well as the
community’s high illiteracy rate, make me question whether traditional lecture-style
NGO workshops are appropriate for these communities, if proven to be ineffective
with even fully literate, fluent Spanish speaking participants.

79
Ibid., 60.

41
(I) Incorporating Community Arts into the NGO Workshop
The placement of an ArtCorps artist with a partnering NGO challenges the
existing NGO strategies. During an interview, De Leon speaks to the difference
between coming to El Salvador to create art for social change on her own behalf
versus working collaboratively to create socially conscious art with FUNDAHMER:
…Para mi fue mucho mejor…que hubiese venido sola…porque ya daban una
fundación, teníamos un plan de trabajo, ya eran compañeros que tenían dos
(anos) o mucho tiempo trabajando con la fundación. Entonces hacíamos
como un programa mensual. Ya conocían las comunidades, ya conocían
mucho mas la problemática que se esta viviendo en ellas, entonces ya nos
sentábamos, era como charlar y a planear bien las actividades que íbamos a
hacer. Entonces creo que así era muchísimo mejor.
80

She continues by describing the collaborative process between her and the NGO in
constructing upcoming community workshops, which consisted of weekly meetings
with the NGO staff every Tuesday. They would meet with the communities and
implement the following week’s planned art activities and creative games.
As previously mentioned, a variety of challenges – including language
barriers between presenters and audience members, high illiteracy rates among their
participants, authoritative teacher-student relationships, a lack of participatory
interaction, and lecture style formats -- prevented the workshops from fulfilling their
full intent and therefore impeded the effective communication of the NGOs social
message. For González, partnering with an ArtCorps artist facilitates the presentation

80
“For me it was so much better…than coming here by myself…because they (ArtCorps) provided
you with a foundation…we had a plan of work…they were colleagues that had two (years) or more
time working with the organization. So we would make monthly work plans. They were already
familiar with the communities, they were already aware of the problematic existing in these
communities, so we would sit down , like conversing with one another, and we would plan out the
activities that we were to do. So I think going about it this way was a better choice.”

42
of social and political issues to the Indigenous or illiterate communities, as when
he explains:
Ella (la artista de ArtCorps) apoyaba mucho a elaborar material didáctico.
Dibujos, para que la gente que no sabe leer lo entendiera mejor
verdad…para que visualicé de una manera mejor el aprendizaje… Si hizo
una diferencia positiva, porque entonces la gente que no sabe leer a través
de el arte mira, y es como ver la televisión, que uno ve el imagen y entra por
la vista, por los oídos. Entonces vimos mas facilidad de comprender los
mensajes…creo que eso era muy positivo…a través de el arte los grupos
comprendían mejor el mensaje.
81

When dealing with the needs of certain individuals, visuals presented in the
workshops prove to be more effective in transmitting social messages then verbal
communication or written text.
González mentioned in his interview that the artist would encourage the
participants to create visual representations exploring their own personal take on a
given social issue. During the workshops the artists invite the participants to share
their reflections with the entire group. In the end, the workshops no longer consisted
of one representative speaking for the group, but evolved into a dialogue shared by
all those attending. “La experiencia es bonita, una aprende mutualmente…el niño
aprende y la ONG tambien de ellos,”
82
Flores recalls how community art-making
became a learning experience for both the NGO and the children.
Through community arts, the traditional NGO workshop began to take new
shape and soon provided avenues of participation for all community members.
González speaks about the work of two ArtCorps volunteers, Sara McGrath and
Johanna van de Voort with the children,“…Cuando vino Sara y estuvo Johanna se

81
“…through art the groups were able to better understand the message.”
82
“The experience is beautiful, one learns mutually from each other, the child learns and the NGO
learns from the child” (my translations)

43
empezó a cambiar un poco de método, talvez que el niño no este muy pasivo, pero
también que pudiera expresar el con dibujos.”
83
Director of FUNDAHMER in El
Salvador, Luís Alberto García Meléndez agrees, “Se a promovido un mayor nivel de
organización, de participación…porque la gente entonces ahorra participa
pintando…lo importante es que la gente esta sacando y expresando pero lo esta
haciendo a través de la participación en diferentes áreas de el arte y la cultura de
nuestro pueblo.”
84
No longer is the NGO workshop merely an exposition of
information, but through the participatory process the participants play a vital role in
dissecting issues and spreading consciousness within their communities. The story
book project, initiated by a 2006 ArtCorps volunteer artist Aryeh Shell, serves as a
perfect example (figs.7 & 8). Shell created a large size story book, painted by the
local youth that integrated drawings the NGOs took from reflections shared by the
participants on environmental concerns within their communities. Shell describes her
projects:
The Conta Historia is the third in a series of large illustrated books that will
be used on mounted poles and used in educational workshops for the
community. This one focuses on the importance of wood saving stoves.
Traditionally, the women cook on open fire stoves that require the time-
consuming use of firewood, and which have a negative impact on respiratory
health and the environment. El Salvador is currently facing an environmental
crisis with only 2% of its original forest left, along with the severe
contamination of industries, garbage, pesticides, and the wars toxic legacy.
85

83
“When Sara and Johanna came we started to change our regular methods, maybe that the child not
be so passive but that he can participate and express himself through drawings.”
84
What has been promoted is a higher level of organization, of participation…because now the people
participate painting…the important thing is that the people are letting out, expressing but they are
doing it through means of art and culture of the people.”
85
From the official ArtCorps press kit provided by ArtCorps. ALL text in the press kit is written in
collaboration with all ArtCorps administrative staff, past and present.

44
In summary, partnering with an ArtCorps artist showed the potential to
create new avenues of participation for those attending an NGO workshop, making
the workshops more dialogical and interactive. As González states, it was through
art, whether painting small pictures, or creating community murals to which even the
illiterate and Indigenous people could contribute, that the communities were able to
freely express their views on the current political and social state. This brings to
mind Freire’s questions: “Who are better prepared than the oppressed to understand
the terrible significance of an oppressive society? Who suffer the effects of
oppression more than the oppressed? Who can better understand the necessity of
liberation?”
86
The significance of participation by the oppressed in the liberation of
the oppressed is reiterated in Chapter 2 of Pedagogy of the Oppressed, where Freire
discusses the “banking system of education” as an instrument of oppression and
concludes the chapter with the following:
The important thing, from my point of view, is for men to come to feel like
masters of their thinking by discussing the thinking and the views of the
world explicitly or implicitly manifest in their own suggestions and those of
their comrades. Because this view of education starts with the conviction that
it cannot present its own program but must search for this program
dialogically with the people, it serves to introduce the pedagogy of the
oppressed, in the elaboration of which the oppressed must participate.
87

In working with children, Flores mentioned having them explore the social
issues that affect them through arts and crafts. In addition, the NGO encouraged the
children to voice their opinion, both through community arts and dialogue, when
asking them what they thought were their given rights and their responsibilities as
children. Mutual learning took place as the NGOs worked collaboratively with the

86
Freire, Pedagogy,29.
87
Ibid., 118.

45
children, no longer limiting their relationship to one of teacher-student, but as
Flores states, where the child learn and in return the NGO learn from the child. De
Leon agrees as she reveals her personal growth as an artist in working with groups of
women promoting women’s rights:
Yo siempre les decía, “Yo no solamente vengo a enseñarle a usted, yo
también estoy aprendiendo…Ver a esas mujeres hablando de lo que les
estaba pasando por medio del arte…y los murales que ellos mismos hacían
su bocetos, los pintaban. Porque no me gustaba llegar y decir bueno vamos a
pintar esta obra, vamos a hacer este mural, No. Si no que de verdad ellos
mismos creaban…desde papel en blanco hasta llevarlo al mural. Todo eso lo
hacían ellos. Yo era su guía nada mas…al final cuando veían su obra ellas
decían “No pensábamos que podíamos hacer esto.” Eso es muy bonito
escucharlo.
88

Dialogue shared between the NGO, the ArtCorps artist and the participants
through the community art process gave birth to Shells story books, proving to be
fundamental in the spreading of social consciousness, and emphasizing with Freire’s
take on the value of dialogue, “Only dialogue which requires critical thinking is also
capable of generating critical thinking. Without dialogue there is no communication,
and without communication there can be no true education.”
89
The illustrated books
were based upon the dialogue and the participation of the community. The
participants were asked about the environmental concerns within their communities,
and ways in which they could improve them. The images were not only inspired
through dialogue with the people, but were placed onto the storybooks by them as
well. The contributions by the participants produced an engaging communication

88
“I always told them, I am not here to simply teach you, I am learning from you too…To see those
women dialoguing about their experiences through art…and the murals, that they designed and
painted. Because I did not like to say “Okay we are going to paint this story, we are going to do this
mural, No. They did all of that themselves. Instead, they truly created it themselves…from the white
paper to the wall of the mural. They did all that. I was only their guide…at the end when they saw
their end product, they would say “We didn’t think we could do this.” Its really beautiful to here them
say that.”
89
Ibid., 81.

46
tool to be used by the NGOs in future community sessions, replacing traditional
lecture style set-ups. This community art process resulted in a dialogical and
productive experience with the community, but most importantly supported
ArtCorps mission to empower the present work of the NGOs through art. Through
the community art process, in the context of their work for improving the conditions
of underdeveloped and oppressed communities, the NGOs can be more easily
identified as true “revolutionaries”, corresponding to Freire’s definition:
… the revolutionary leaders do not go to the people in order to bring them a
message of “salvation”, but in order to come to know through dialogue with
them both their objective situation and their awareness of that situation- the
various levels of perception of themselves and of the world in which and with
which they exist. One cannot expect positive results from an educational or
political program which fails to respect the particular view of the world held
by the people…
90

90
Ibid., 84.

47
CHAPTER IV: Generating “True Generosity” through Community
Arts-Making
False charity constrains the fearful and subdued, the “rejects of life,” to
extend their trembling hands. True generosity, lies in striving so that these
hands-whether of individuals or entire peoples-need to be extended less and
less in supplication, so that more and more they become human hands which
work and, working, transform the world.
91

The efforts of ArtCorps correspond to Freire’s argument on False Charity vs.
True Generosity when working towards the liberation of the oppressed because their
goal is to ensure that the artist’s work remains practical to the development of
communities in Guatemala and El Salvador even after the artist leaves. The ultimate
goal is to limit dependence on further outside assistance by all participants, including
the NGOs. Freire argues further that “Libertarian action must recognize this
dependence as a weak point and must attempt through reflection and action to
transform it into independence.”
92
Allegedly, ArtCorps leaves behind a legacy that
transforms this dependence into independence, which relies on the following
developments:
93

• NGOs trained to use art as an outreach and education tool
• Empowered and engaged local communities who can act as agents of
continuing social change
• Trained local artists who understand how to communicate social messages
through art
• Minds opened to the power of art and culture and community organization

91
Ibid., 29.
92
Ibid., 53.
93
http://www.artcorp.org

48
(I) The ArtCorps Legacy
Since starting in 1999 ArtCorps has partnered with several Environmental
NGOs, in an effort to raise awareness on the significance of environmental
conservation in Guatemala and El Salvador. Through this type of partnership and
first hand experience of community art-making, the NGOs are challenged to embark
on a deeper understanding on community arts as an outreach and educational tool. A
number of NGOs have committed to maintaining the incorporation of the arts into
their work with the community, independently leading, initiating and even
participating in their own community art projects. For example, the Technicos of
Bajo Lempa, El Salvador, who working with Shell
94
in 2006, developed a theatre skit
speaking on the dangers of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) and pesticides.
They wrote and performed their theatre skit at a gathering of peasants from the Bajo
Lempa area, known as the School of Agriculture. Shell gives an account on the
narrative of the theatre piece (figs. 9-11):
We developed a piece in which the ancestors are visited by some very
strange “future being”, namely the GMO hybrid of a tomato gene mixed
with a fish gene to make tomatoes cold-resistant, and Don Tamaron, an evil
pesticide that kills everything including the beneficial insects and a few
human beings…when they wake up from their nightmare, they decide they
need to reach out to their descendents and help them to remember to live in
balance with the earth, to save seeds, to preserve the ecosystem upon which
we all depend.
95

After working with the artist, the NGOs continued to utilize the theatre skit in
their educational workshops, putting on their paper costumes and taking on the
characters of Don Tamaron and the mixed tomato and fish gene. The work of Shell
in collaboration with members of the NGO challenged to improve their traditional

94
Aryeh Shell, previously introduced 2006 ArtCorps artist
95
Ibid. From the Environmental highlights of the official ArtCorps website

49
methods in conducting environmental workshops for the community.
Nevertheless, I wonder what the results would be if members of the community were
included in both the writing and the performing aspects of the project, creatively
partaking and aiding the NGOs in presenting the skits to their own family and
friends?
When addressing women’s rights, the ArtCorps and NGO partnership seeks
to encourage the mobilization and organization of various groups of women,
particularly within the Indigenous population in Guatemala. In 2005 one of
ArtCorps’ artists, Johanna van de Voort worked with a group of Indigenous women
in El Bongo, a town of about 700 people in the east-central jungle area of Guatemala.
The ArtCorps project consisted of learning to make and sell small bags out of local
fabric. Till this date, Las Mujeres De El Bongo
96
continue to make the bags, and
have now begun to make pants and shirts (Figure 12). Their work serves as a
significant contribution to the economy, benefiting their communities and families in
Guatemala. Though Johanna maintains contact with the women and the NGO from
time to time, it is the women who continue to meet on a weekly basis, producing
their product and continuing their work as a women’s organization. On one occasion,
after van de Voort’s departure, their newly developed organizing skills were put to
the test, when an incident took place involving two sewing machines. According to
Zoyla, the president of Las Mujeres De El Bongo, a different organization lent the
women’s group two sewing machines, and had come back to El Bongo to reclaim
their machines. Zoyla and the rest of the women understood the situation, but

96
The Women of El Bongo

50
wondered about the future of their small business without any sewing machines.
Zoyla recalls meeting with the women the following day,“Pues nos quedábamos
tristes nosotros…que vamos hacer?...Vamos haber a probar otra vez con la puerta
de el alcalde!”
97
It was then that they started writing a petition, and with the
assistance of Lem,
98
wrote an official letter to the Mayor requesting assistance for
their business. Three representatives from the women’s group, including Zoyla,
traveled to the city, where they personally presented the mayor with the official letter
and petition. Transportation became an issue, as Zoyla claims,“Como les digo yo,
que se gasta…Como esta el pasaje hoy.”
99
However, the women planned for the
future and set aside a small fund for the organization. Whenever they sold more than
one small purse, the profits of at least one of them was placed back into the
organizational fund. It wasn’t long after that the women received great news: the
mayor donated four sewing machines to Las Mujeres De El Bongo. In addition to the
four donated by the mayor, six more were donated by a different organization
through more petition and letter writing efforts by the women. Today Las Mujeres
De El Bongo continue to make purses, shirts and pants and have just recently found a
market in England, Johanna van de Voort’s Native Country. A small space in
Zoyla’s humble home serves as a temporary production studio and meeting room for
the women (Figure 13). Zoyla is currently working with the women in seeking
avenues of financial assistance to create a larger, more suitable production workshop
for the organization. There is still more to do to guarantee the future of their

97
“Well we were very sad…we asked ourselves, what are we going to do? That’s when I said, Lets
try knocking on the door of the council man again!”
98
NGO technico of STC introduced in earlier chapters
99
“Like I would tell them, its expensive…the bus rates today.”

51
business, and yet the women remain hopeful that great things lie ahead of them, as
Zoyla states, “Para mi yo miro que ya vamos mas para arriba y no para abajo…”
100

It is evident in my interviews with the women that the arrival of the ArtCorps
artist is appreciated, and that their work with the artist is meaningful and ultimately
beneficial to the women in the community of El Bongo. Nevertheless, I wonder what
more ArtCorps could contribute to the lives of the members of this community.
According to Kwon, “some artists have noticed, community-based art can function
as a kind of “soft” social engineering to defuse, rather then address, community
tensions and to divert, rather than attend to, the legitimate dissatisfaction that many
community groups feel in regard to the uneven distribution of existing cultural and
economic resources.”
101
How can ArtCorps utilize their community art projects to
further articulate a community’s need or to fully address a problem in the
community? Fortunately, the ArtCorps artists have created a wide range of
community art projects with both effective long-term and short-term results. For
example, an ArtCorps artist worked with a group of women on International
Women’s Day. The project was intended to directly address the cultural and social
adversities of the group of Indigenous women in Guatemala. The project consisted of
a group of Indigenous women who actively participated and dialogued with one
another on the current actions of violence against women. Together, they created
paper murals and headdresses declaring their empowerment. The banners and
headdresses were presented to the community in a march, where 300 women of
various Indigenous backgrounds participated (Figures 14 & 15). For many, this was

100
“For me I see that we are only going up and not going down…”
101
Kwon, One Place After, 153,

52
their first community arts making experience, and almost certainly, their first
public action addressing the issue. Although this project was a temporary event, its
implications had long term effects on both the women who were involved in their
first act of social protest and the community who witnessed their presentation.
Furthermore, this particular project was not only based on creating a product -- like
paper murals and headdresses -- but instead it also encouraged those involved in the
community art-making process to utilize their art as an activist tool.
The ArtCorps artists collaborate with local community artists in various
projects, in hopes that they will continue with their work once their residency is
complete. The ArtCorps artists do not formally train local artists on communicating
social issues through community arts as Dowds explains: “We ask them (the
ArtCorps artists) to have an eye out for mentoring local artists and in some cases,
like Aryeh, there was deeper training for some youth who showed interest and skill
with theatre. But we do not have a formal mentoring plan.” Such projects may prove
beneficial in the way that working with the NGOs has helped further their dialogue
through community art-making. On the other hand, non-artists community members
prove to have taken interest in incorporating community art-making into their own
work. For instance, in 2007 De Leon worked with the community of El Paraíso, El
Salvador, and established a collaborative and supportive relationship with
community member and organizer, Mrs. Sara Villafuerte. It was during this
interview that Villafuerte revealed how she would take on De Leon’s art-based
communication techniques, and integrate the art-making process into her workshops
with younger children:

53
Ella, con los pequeñitos, los ponía que llenaran una hoja grandota con la
crayola…Porque hay veces que el niño y la niña no pueden hacerlo
(expresarse con palabras). Eso también lo he estado haciendo, y de ponerlos
a un momento a decir, miren ustedes hagan algo, y que se significa esta
cosita?... y que ellos se expresen.
102

Villafuerte witnessed the community art process with De Leon, participating in a few
activities, but generally observing how through art the children willingly expressed
themselves and shared their outlook on the current social and political state of their
country. Villafuerte’s work consisted of uniting and organizing women’s groups,
teaching writing to community elders and preparing after-school programs for
children, in order to keep them out of the streets. She observed that the children often
became bored during the after school sessions where she lectured on a given topic,
and it was then that she approached De Leon for assistance during her workshops.
Villafuerte was not affiliated with any NGO, but was first introduced to De Leon
when they both returned from a ceremony commemorating the anniversary of the
murder of local Father Octavio Ortiz. De Leon came to the community of El Paraíso
and in a casual conversation brought up her work with ArtCorps and
FUNDAHMER. It was then that Villafuerte asked for assistance from De Leon.
Supported by ArtCorps and FUNDAHMER, De Leon soon began to work with
Villafuerte and the community. Villafuerte recalled learning from De Leon’s
activities during her workshops, “Con todo lo que ella hacia con los niños…Como
ella logro planificar sus actividades…y todos participaban, todos hacían algo, los
grandes también. Porque algo que he observado es que los adolescente como que se

102
“She, with the kids, would make them draw on a huge sheet of paper. Because you know
sometimes the boy or the girl cannot express themselves verbally. I too have been doing this, and
getting to a point where I will ask them to draw something, and then asking them to share what it
means to them, allowing them room to express themselves.”

54
aburren mas, y ellos quieren mas actividades. Ella pues así hacia eso…y los
muchachos bien motivados.”
103
Though not an artist herself, Villafuerte claims to
learn from the strategies of De Leon during her workshops with the community and
soon after used the community art-making process to develop her skills as a more
effective community organizer and activist.
According to Charles D. Brockett, author of Political Movements and
Violence in Latin America, the assistance of outside allies and support groups,
including religious workers, union organizers, urban students, international
development workers and revolutionary guerilla workers “aided in the mobilization
of people who lack “political power” in many rural areas of Central America since
the 1970s.
104
Brockett argues that the contributions made by activist outside the
community, specifically the peasant community, “provide organizational expertise,
moral support, and counterhegemonic ideologies and identities that help build and
strengthen ties of solidarity among subordinate groups.”
105
My interviewees claimed
that the community art work of a number of ArtCorps artists has stayed with them
after the ArtCorps artist departed. Some large questions remain: has the work
reached its full potential by the time it is complete, does it truly incorporate an arts
legacy and is it destined to contribute to the lives of those involved? Nevertheless
ArtCorps can claim their legacy with some success in carrying out the mission to
encourage communities to transform their lives, and reduce their dependence on

103
“With all that she did with the children…how she would coordinate her activities…and everyone
participated, everyone did something, the older ones too. Because there is something that I have
observed which is that the adolescents get bored easily, they want more activities. Well she would do
just that…and the adolescents were very motivated.”
104
Charles D. Brockett, Political Movements and Violence in Latin America (New York:Cambridge
University Press, 2005) ,130.
105
Ibid., 130-131.

55
outside support. For Freire, this is a “lesson” that will come from the oppressed
themselves and from those who are in true solidarity with those being subjugated:
106

Political action on the side of the oppressed must be pedagogical action in the
authentic sense of the word, and therefore action with the oppressed. Those
who work for liberation must not take advantage of the emotional
dependency of the oppressed- dependence that is the fruit of the concrete
situation of domination which surrounds them and which engendered their
unauthentic view of the world. Using their dependence to create still greater
dependence is an oppressor tactic.
107

106
Freire, Pedagogy, 29.
107
Ibid., 53.

56
Conclusion
The official ArtCorps press package states ArtCorps has strengthened the
international development work of fifteen different organizations in Guatemala and
El Salvador, impacting over 20, 000 people in more than 160 communities since
1999.
108
Through harnessing the power of art, ArtCorps claims to have accomplished
the following:
109

• promoting environmental conservation in over 100 communities
• teaching children their rights in over 30 communities
• increasing civic participation among indigenous groups in 25 communities
• increasing knowledge of critical public health issues in more than 35
communities
• developing youth leadership in 70 communities
• increasing girls’ access to education in 15 communities
• promoting women’s rights in 160 communities
• creating economic opportunities in 10 communities
Attract, Engage, Imagine and Act; according to ArtCorps, the role they play
to encourage social consciousness in underdeveloped regions in Central America
manifests itself through these four words. Their mission appears to be practical proof
of Freire’s Critical Pedagogy, where he argues that the oppressed must actively
participate in the process of their liberation, reflect on their current oppressive
situations through dialogue with one another, envision ways in which they can
transforms their worlds, and finally take that vision and implement change. The four

108
From the official ArtCorps press kit
109
Ibid.

57
ArtCorps values seem to have proven to work hand in hand with their mission to
strengthen the existing development efforts of their partnering NGOs (Figures 16-
18). The NGO workshops seemed to successfully utilize community art-making as a
preferred replacement of the old “banking” method of education. In these workshops
community art making was utilized as a vehicle to assure active participation by all
those in attendance, engaging them in a dialogical process that addressed their views
on social, political and environmental issues. Through the process of dialogue,
participants began to reflect on their current social and political state. The facilitators
then used community arts to encourage the participants to imagine the world as they
wished it to be. The community members, newly inspired by this process, initiated
social actions which led to real transformations.
Furthermore, my research proves that ArtCorps’ claimed “legacy” to lessen
the dependence of NGOs and community members on further outside support
seemed to have accomplished some success. This seems evident based on the
extensive aforementioned body of work that remained even after the ArtCorps artists
have departed. For example a number of NGOs continue to commit themselves to
incorporate the arts into their community projects; Las Mujeres De El Bongo
continue to independently manufacture and sell purses to profit both their
communities and their organization; and community organizers, inspired by the
community art process, continue to integrate the arts into their current social and
political work.

58
Recommendations
Despite this apparent success, my research, subsequent interviews and my
experiences as an ArtCorps intern, reveal that there are still a few areas that call for
the further growth and development of this organization. These include a perceived
need to further investigate the transparency and the implementation of the volunteer
artists/community/NGO working relationships. ArtCorps role as mediator between
the NGO and the artist merits further scrutiny as well. Finally, the ArtCorps artists’
selection process could use some critical revision. I might recommend that ArtCorps
explore the feasibility of creating more effective interactive working relationships
between the NGO and the volunteer artists by facilitating a deeper understanding and
appreciation by the NGO for the work of their partnering community artists. The
liberatory theorists cited in this paper repeatedly emphasize the importance of
inclusion and dialog; therefore, it seems crucial that all partnering NGOs and
participating community members be included in the ArtCorps volunteer preparation
and training process, before and during the presence of a volunteer artist. A number
of NGOs interviewed revealed a lack of understanding for the community art process
prior to the arrival of the artists; while others shared that they were only present
during the formation of a small number of community art projects. Prior to the
arrival of an ArtCorps artist, I suggest that ArtCorps initiate a welcome package,
similar to the artists training manual, designed entirely for the partnering NGO. The
NGO training manual may wish to include background work information on the
ArtCorps artist assigned to the NGO, and furthermore may utilize some of the
information included in the artist training manual, i.e “The community art process”-

59
a section which seems to serve as an educational tool for individuals with little
community arts knowledge, one which is filled with theories of arts and politics,
previous community art project results, and additionally, some project ideas and
inspirations. The current ArtCorps training manual includes a section entitled
“Relationships with NGOs” which consists of a comic strip used to ease some of the
pressures the artist may face when learning about their expected duties as
collaborators with the NGO. This section addresses conflict resolution, how to
become a better listener, a better team player, and even some tips on how to motivate
a team. There are inspirational quotes, a peaceful disagreement chart and some
articles on leadership as it pertains to community art-making. In short, the existing
material contains enough powerful tools that could, with very little effort, be adapted
to better include all stakeholders in the planning and implementation process. The
mediation and communication tools offered in this section can easily be applied to
meet the needs of the NGO and-if reworded- might refer to not only relationships
with NGOs but to “Relationships with Community Artists.”
In addition, the NGOs should perhaps all be invited to attend the artists’
welcome training workshop that takes place in January at the beginning of the artists’
residency. The workshop might therefore be used as an opportunity to introduce the
NGOs to their partnering artists, where the NGOs and the artists may openly express
their expectations when partnering with each other. During the workshop, both the
NGOs and the volunteer artists could conceivably lead and actively participate in
simple community art projects and group building activities. The volunteer artists
might then continue to lead similar community art training workshops for the entire

60
on-site NGO staff throughout their nine month residency. Based on this model, it
may be a good idea to require the volunteer artists to facilitate weekly short
community art workshops for their partnering NGOs. These mini-workshops could
offer the entire NGO staff an opportunity to actively participate and personally
experience the community art making process. If necessary, the workshops could
easily be incorporated into the existing NGOs weekly meeting agenda. If ArtCorps
were to create an NGO training manual, invite NGOs to the artist’s workshops and
require continuous hands-on training led by the NGOs partnering artists, the NGO
staff may then begin to better understand the significance of art and community
organizing.
Finally, I draw attention to the manner in which ArtCorps attends to its
selection process; specifically, I found that there appeared to be very few local
Guatemalan or Salvadoran artists who volunteered. I must acknowledge that
ArtCorps does not discourage local artists from volunteering; nonetheless, I believe
there is potential to create many more practical opportunities for local artists to
participate in the application process. One suggestion may be to personally invite
local artists on sites as potential ArtCorps volunteers; this is a task that could well be
accomplished by the partnering NGO or the Regional Director of ArtCorps. Semi-
formal training by the onsite ArtCorps volunteer may serve as an effective method to
properly mentor a local artist, if they continuously involve the local artists in the
community art-making process of a few of their projects. Of course, this would mean
more work on behalf of the artist volunteers but it can also serve as a productive
collaborative learning experience shared between native and foreign community

61
artists. The final projects created during their collaboration can serve as sample
co-projects for the local artist, particularly useful if the local artist has yet to
document their work in an art portfolio. Submitting a personal work portfolio is one
of ArtCorps current application requirements. If anything, it can also serve to hone
the skills of the community artists in hopes that they continue to create community
art projects within their communities in the future. In previous chapters I also discuss
certain issues in establishing sustainable relationships between a foreign artist and
their assigned communities. I suggest that ArtCorps create more opportunities for
active participation by the communities, particularly in the preparation and selection
process of the arriving ArtCorps volunteer. ArtCorps has a selection committee in
the United States; why is there not one in Guatemala and El Salvador where the artist
will complete their residency? I propose this committee consist of local NGO and
community members. The members of these committees can assist in the selection
process of the ArtCorps artists assigned to their sites. Their suggestions must be
taken into full consideration when selecting the artists. If the community is offered
various opportunities to participate and take ownership in the ArtCorps process, it is
less likely that they will feel alienated or unfamiliar to the arriving ArtCorps artists.

62
The Future of ArtCorps
When asked were she would like to see ArtCorps in the next ten years, Claire
Dowds, Executive Director of ArtCorps responded with the following, “Throughout
Central, South America and Africa…There are no limitations in my opinion. I can
even see ArtCorps in the United States, I think it would be extremely powerful in a
lot of urban communities where people feel defeated and feel that there’s no hope,
and they can’t make a difference and they can’t make a change…” Taking a lesson
from Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Shaull argues that although the
methodologies of Freire’s educational philosophy are directly related to the
disposition of those in Latin America, the reader should not regard Freire’s
philosophies as unsuited to the social and political conditions of the United States.
110

On the contrary, Shaull correlates the great efforts of those in Latin America who,
“struggle to become free subjects and to participate in the transformation of their
society”, to the social struggles of not only Black, but Mexican-American, as well as
middle-class and young people in the United States.
111
I believe ArtCorps can serve
as an innovative community art for social change model that can generate potential
partnerships with NGOs in the United States. By continuing to follow Freire’s
Critical Pedagogy throughout the community art process, ArtCorps demonstrates the
potential to provide creative opportunities for communities in rural neighborhoods
throughout the United States where they will actively participate in the social and
political transformation of their lives. The social and political work of existing

110
Freire, Pedagogy, 10.
111
Ibid.

63
community arts organizations in the United States can benefit from Freire’s theory
and philosophy when utilizing community arts as a tool to raise social consciousness.
Only time will tell what truly lies in store when discussing the evolution of
ArtCorps as a social action community arts organization, while the February 2008
edition of the official ArtCorps online newsletter reads, “ArtCorps has launched into
2008 with new momentum.”
112
Some of the changes for the 2008 term include
funding from three new institutions including The Ford Foundation, The Paiz
Foundation and ArtVentures. For the past few years, ArtCorps has relied entirely on
the support of its founding foundation, the NEBF. This will be the first year that
ArtCorps can count on additional support from other institutions. New NGO
partnerships emerge with World Neighbors MesoAmérica, The Association of Forest
Communities of the Peten, The Wildlife Conservation Society, and Sistema Atitlan.
The ArtCorps artists volunteer for the 2008 term include eight diverse community
artists, ranging from theatre to visual artists. For the 2009 term, ArtCorps has one
Guatemalan applicant and is even offering both one year and two year volunteer
opportunities, where they prove to consider the concerns of former NGO and art
volunteers, “…time flies by and that one year is hardly enough time to get to know
each other, plan the projects, accomplish the profound work desired, and leave a
strong foundation for the work to be sustainable in the long run.”
113
However, what I
personally believe to be their greatest development thus far is the implementation of
the ArtCorps first ever joint artist and NGO training workshop in January! The
workshop was designed in collaboration with Alumna Aryeh Shell, the ArtCorps

112
http://www.artcorp.org/enews/feb08.html
113
http://www.artcorp.org/ArtistPacket2009EnglishScreen.pdf

64
board and the staff. The artists and their assigned NGOs were introduced to each
other on the fifth day of the four day artists training workshop where together they
explored the potential contributions of community arts into the existing development
work of each organization.
Many political and education plans have failed because their authors
designed them according to their own personal views of reality, never once
taking into account (except as mere objects of their action) the men-in-a-
situation to whom their program was ostensibly directed…For the truly
humanist educator and authentic revolutionary, the object of the action is the
reality to be transformed by them together with other men - not other men
themselves.
114

For ArtCorps, 2008 will be the beginning of just such a new journey. Many
of the volunteer artists, partnering NGOs, and participating communities will
experience the exciting changes and first-time attempts for the organization. In
January, for example, the newly selected ArtCorps volunteers will begin their nine
month residency as community artists in partnership with NGOs in Central America.
If the interviews of 2007 are any indication, this coming journey is also likely to be
shared amongst all the participants. Through this community art process, many
claimed to have collectively experienced personal, social and political
transformations, which ultimately inspired them to commit to continue to fight
alongside the social resistance of the people of Guatemala and El Salvador.
ArtCorps defines their efforts simply as “Art in Action.” Even though they
may not identify their work as revolutionary, evidence points to the contrary. To
their credit, ArtCorps attracts a number of volunteer artists with strong activists and
community-organizing backgrounds. Some of the NGO members, who have

114
Freire, Pedagogy, 83.

65
dedicated their lives to work alongside the social and political struggles of the
people, and possibly because of the nature of their work, have established political
alignments. In addition, a number of participating community members take on
active roles in the radical movements of their countries through art. What ArtCorps
states as merely “Art in Action”, based on what I have seen, I recognize as
community-art making in its most “authentic revolutionary” form.

66

Figure 1.

Figure 2. Figure 3.

Figure 4.

67

Figure 5.

Figure 6.

68

Figure 7.

Figure 8.

69

Figure 9.

Figure 10.

Figure 11.

70

Figure 12.

Figure 13.

Figure 14.

71

Figure 15.

Figure 16.

72

Figure 17.

Figure 18.

73
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Asociacion Mangle. http://bajo-lempa.org/ (accessed 11/07/07)

Becker, Carol, ed. The Subversive Imagination; Artists, Society and Social
Responsibility. New York: Routledge, 1994.

Booth, John A., Christine J. Wade, and Thomas W. Walker. Understanding Central
America; Global Forces, Rebellion and Change. Colorado: Westview Press, 2006.

Brockett, Charles D. Political Movements and Violence in Central America. New
York: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

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Felshin, Nina, ed. But is it Art? The Spirit of Art as Activism. Seattle: Bay Press,
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(accessed 11/07/07)

Graves, James Bau. Cultural Democracy; the Arts, Community & the Public
Purpose. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2005.

Hamas, Taj l., Frederick A. Swarts, Anne R. Smart., ed. Culture of Responsibility
and the Role of NGOs. Minnesota: Paragon House, 2003.

74

Hammond, John L. Fighting to Learn; Popular Education and Guerilla War in El
Salvador. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1998.

Hirschman, Jack, ed. Art on the Line; Essays by Artists about the Point Where Their
Art & Activism Intersect. Conneticut: Curbstone Press, 2002.

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Kester, Grant H. Conversation Pieces; Community and Communication in Modern
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Abstract (if available)

Abstract In their efforts to encourage political, social and environmental consciousness, Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) in Guatemala and El Salvador typically subscribe to the " banking system of education " as their primary pedagogy. The " banking system" fails to promote critical thinking within host communities, which counters the NGOs' goals and leaves them struggling to convey their message. ArtCorps, a community arts organization, was created to bridge this communication gap between many Guatemalan and Salvadoran grassroots organizations and their targeted communities through art. By applying Paulo Freire 's theory of Critical Pedagogy as a template, I seek to investigate how a community arts partnership between ArtCorps and the NGOs can better empower NGOs and the communities in underdeveloped regions. This study examines the integration of community arts into international development work and consciousness-raising through interviews I conducted in 2007 with participating ArtCorps volunteer artists, partnering NGOs and community members in Guatemala and El Salvador.

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Asset Metadata

Creator Cornejo, Xiomara Y. (author)

Core Title In the art of revolution: integrating community arts into the existing development work of non-government organizations in Guatemala and El Salvador

School School of Fine Arts

Degree Master of Public Art Studies

Degree Program Public Art Studies

Publication Date 05/10/2008

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag Central America,community arts,consciousness-raising,critical pedagogy,international development,non-government organization,OAI-PMH Harvest

Place Name El Salvador (countries), Guatemala (countries)

Language English

Advisor Blair, Brent (committee chair), Decter, Joshua (committee member), Wallach, Ruth (committee member)

Creator Email xcornejo@usc.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-m1237

Unique identifier UC1288642

Identifier etd-Cornejo-20080510 (filename),usctheses-m40 (legacy collection record id),usctheses-c127-69176 (legacy record id),usctheses-m1237 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-Cornejo-20080510.pdf

Dmrecord 69176

Document Type Thesis

Rights Cornejo, Xiomara Y.

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Repository Name Libraries, University of Southern California

Repository Location Los Angeles, California

Repository Email cisadmin@lib.usc.edu