Sewing, drawing or crafting, there are no creative limits set. Artistic talent is no requirement for taking part. It is more about exploring yourself and discovering your creativity.
“We all got a DIN A3 sheet und chose two pens. The task was to fix our elbows on this sheet and try to draw in this position. Both hands should move coincidently, no hand should stand still. It was very difficult to draw in this position and some movements caused clenching up fingers and wrists. Depending on the pens we used there were also other problems. I had a crayon and a ballpen and the ballpen didn’t draw in some positions. So it was much more difficult to get the lines where I wanted them to be.“
Being creative without worrying one’s brain is something most artists wish for from time to time and it holds people back from starting to be creative.
The Dinner Stories Project – Here I Am makes a step in this direction. The project is based on the stories family members tell each other when having dinner. So the projects’ participants get together once a week to talk about their days. This interchange acts as an inspiration for being creative under the guidance of Katie Luzie Stüdemann and Deborah di Meglio. Deborah is responsible for graphic arts and Katie is responsible in the matter of choreography and acting. She also guides physical relaxing tasks.
The aspiration is an artwork, but the kind of artwork is completely undetermined. “You often block yourself by having to high expectations and working towards a perfect artwork”, Deborah says. This project helps people to escape from this thinking. Not to think, but just start and see what happens during the progress. Therefore we had the task that was explained above. It is impossible to draw a clear picture in this position.
“In the end there was a scribble that showed where I had difficulties to hold the pen in a useful way. Other participants did it differently and filled just half the sheet with much smaller lines. Deborah examined every artwork and let us know her first impressions. Then we got a homework: Finding forms in the lines, coloring them and cutting them out. After this we should build a 3D model only with this one sheet and glue it on the same sheet of paper. In my case there wasn’t a lot paper left over to use as a base, although I had a lot of big parts for crafting. Those of us who drew small lines and forms had a lot of paper to stick something on, but only small elements to cut out. “
“The Dinner Stories” is a project of Kiel CREARtiv e.v. and is for 16 to 65-year-old women. But Kiel CREARtiv offers a lot more!
What is Kiel CREARtiv? Kiel CREARtiv is a merger of artists, musicians and actors and also of educators and entrepreneurs who want to engage in cultural and social sectors. It was founded in 2006 by Katie Luzie Stüdemann and six further foundation members. The idea was to establish the organization “Crear vale la pena” from Buenos Aires in Germany. This organization offers creative workshops for children and teenagers living in slums to offer a vision.
The German kids often have similar problems like those in Buenos Aires e.g. a low education level, exclusion, a bad image, little self-confidence or other social problems. The offers are mainly for 10 to 20 years old teenagers and they are creative ventures without a defined aim. Often choreographies or stage plays emerge, but also other artworks are possible. The projects’ aim is to support the youths in their life. By working on the projects, they learn that their voices are heard, that their opinion is worthwhile and that their ideas can help to reach a common goal. On top, different social classes come and work together as well as different generations, cultures and opinions. By all this the teenager’s self-confidence, the knowledge about their strengths and weaknesses, their sense of responsibility and their ability to work in a team are trained. Especially by meeting and working with people from different social classes or cultures prejudices get reduced and a sense of equality increases. Projects like “The Dinner Stories” or the open acting group address private persons. But the organization also cooperates with schools and companies and develops project days or workshops.
Text / Layout / Pictures: Sandra Eger
