Connecting the arts with life and learning

CHIANG MAI, Thailand - Nov. 5, 2013 - PRLog -- It is becoming increasingly clear that successfully preparing young people for life in the 21^st century requires developing student capacity for creative thinking: finding solutions to as yet unforeseen problems, being adaptable in a constantly changing marketplace, or quickly assimilating new systems of information.  In each case the ability to develop new ideas and new approaches is a vital skill to possess.

With this in mind in 2012, Traidhos Three-Generation Community for Learning (http://www.threegeneration.org) employed an Arts and Creative Programmes Manager to lead the development of ‘education for creativity’ throughout the organisation. After six years in the UK as Creative Projects Manager for a leading regional Arts Centre and as a regional chairperson of ENYAN (the English National Youth Arts Network), UK Arts educationalist Alex Soulsby was tasked with embedding the arts and creativity into the Traidhos organisation.

“I truly believe that the arts play a vital role in providing a successful and well-rounded education for any young person. Our commitment to ‘education for creativity’ ensures we provide exciting and diverse, creative experiences for our students and community. Regular exposure to the arts in all their forms helps students understand the value of ideas and the special kind of dialogue that arts engagement generates,” Soulsby said.

The programme has created partnerships and built relationships with local, national and international artists and arts organisations.  It has built on an exchange where participating practitioners deliver workshops and master classes, are given resources and studio space and have regular training and mentoring opportunities. A year later, with some of these relationships firmly in place, the organisation now provides dynamic arts experiences and activity throughout its programmes, and much of it delivered by highly experienced, industry professionals.

Traidhos is a vibrant and diverse community, consisting of Prem Tinsulanonda International School (http://ptis.threegeneration.org), as well as several sports academies, a visiting schools programme, a cooking school and organic farm. Throughout the organisation, the development of a cutting-edge arts programme is allowing our immediate and wider community members to embrace and celebrate the arts in all their varied forms via providing opportunities for all our members to engage as artists, practitioners and audience members.

Equally important, our formal education programmes benefit from regular access to arts practitioners through master classes, visiting artists and structured arts residencies.  Performance artists, choreographers, Hip-Hop dancers, mural artists, or creative writers: the addition of creative practitioners adds value to the learning experiences of all our students and enriches the curriculum that we deliver.

A recent example of how the new programme is developing is the 3^rd Space project.

3^rd Space is an artist residency and exhibition exploring internationalism and collaboration within current contemporary cross cultures. The project brought creative professionals from opposite sides of the world onto the campus, letting participants engage with other artists, students and the wider community.

The residency and project were a direct result of the Traidhos partnership with UK Arts organization Surface Arts (http://surfacearts.co.uk/). In The spring of 2012 the Surface Arts Artistic Director (Katie Hawker) and Alex Soulsby, the Traidhos Arts and Creative Projects Manager, committed themselves to combining forces to create what they envisioned as Northern Thailand’s most dynamic international arts residency and cross-art form exhibition.

Aiming to identify and bring a cross-section of international artists to Chiang Mai, they teamed up with H Gallery, one of Thailand’s most important contemporary arts galleries, and set about structuring a programme of work that would not only result in an artistically significant exhibition, but that would also provide rich educational opportunities for the staff and students at Traidhos Three-Generation for Learning

Six international artists were selected and spent a month living and working on campus, delivering workshops, engaging in mentoring activities and producing work for a final exhibition. The group included a number of critically acclaimed artists who worked in medium ranging from film and ‘soundscaping’ to illustration, painting and performance art: Emma Hammaren (Sweden), Jockel Liess (Germany), Taryn Takahashi  (Peru), Ittirawee Chotirawee (Thailand) and Chris and Paul Czainski from the UK.

As well as a plethora of student workshops and master classes throughout the project, Traidhos and Surface Arts organised a family-focused community arts day. The day offered arts workshops facilitated by the participating artists to Chiang Mai’s wider community.

Soulsby stated, “The arts are a vital means for stimulating dialogue and generating new ideas within any society. I think that an organisation such as ours has a responsibility to engage meaningfully with our immediate and wider community and this project has allowed us to do just that.”

Participants at the day-long event took part in everything from mural making and poetry walls to sound-walks and Peruvian food art. “The very fact that we had groups of people from six or seven different nationalities collaborating in our workshops brilliantly demonstrates the power the arts have to break down cultural barriers and foster a greater sense of shared understanding.

“Our broader commitment to develop the arts across our organisation and demonstrate the value of creative engagement for all has been clearly demonstrated in this project, and I can’t wait for the next one!”

Traidhos is committed to developing creative education programmes to a level where they serve as examples of international best practice and set the standard for creative education policy in South East Asia.

For more information about the programme of work being delivered and developed by Traidhos please email alexs@threegeneration.org