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Karen Demavivas
- Female
- Brooklyn, NY
- United States
- Blog Posts (2)
- Groups (2)
- Gallery (112)
- Photo Albums (2)
Karen Demavivas's Groups
Karen Demavivas's Page
Profile Information
- My Role
- Arts Lover, Arts Institution
- My Discipline(s)
- Theater, Dance, Music, Visual Arts, Crafts, Culinary Arts, Design
- About Me And My Work
- I am more a culture worker than a practicing artist, but have participated in artistic collaborations that engage community. Currently, I work as the Program Coordinator in the development of cultural programs for Aoka: a social business enterprise in the form of a sustainable tourism initiative (see details below). A two-time Fulbright Fellow, I was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship in 2004 to work as program coordinator, curator, and art critic on community-based art projects in Northern Thailand. This led to serving as the UNESCO-Fulbright Fellow for Culture at UNESCO and then working as a consultant on culture and development initiatives at this agency and the UN Population Fund in New York. My portfolios at the UN included World Heritage conservation, indigenous issues, creative economies, and culturally sensitive approaches to protecting women’s rights. My art and culture writing has been featured in the Brooklyn Rail, the Bangkok Post, Art4D Magazine, the UN Population Fund's publication "Culture Matters 2" as well as the exhibition catalogue of of Rikrit Tiravanija's 2004 retrospective "Nothing" at the Chiang Mai University Art Museum.
- Places I Would Like To Visit
- Among many inspiring experiences, I highlight three here:
As part of Aoka’s pilot trip (launched in September 2009), I participated in an Afro-Brazilian percussion workshop in a quilombola community nestled in the sub-tropical forests of Vale do Ribeira (part of the UNESCO Natural Heritage Site of the Atlantic Forests, Sao Paolo State, Brazil). In collaboration with quilombola community members who seek to revive the cultural practices of their African roots, Aoka and the NGO Batuque de Nagô have begun to develop music workshops. Held within the community, these open workshops are facilitated by the virtuoso percussionist Pithy Cajonero who dynamically tells of the origins of Afro-Brazilian music and shares traditional ways of playing the drum with both local people and interested visitors.
While I lived in Chiang Mai, Thailand, I was a volunteer art teacher for Studio Xang, a grass-roots organization which provides free art classes to underprivileged Shan migrant children from Burma. This work made me
passionate about the human rights movement for indigenous peoples in Burma and art as a
transformative means of engagement.
I once lived for a month with a herder family in the Khangai region of Mongolia, while helping a Mongolian friend with a community resource management project. While there, I herded animals on horseback, hiked through the steppes, and helped with the domestic chores in the family ger (Mongolian trellis tent covered with felt). Along with the joy of being in the everyday rhythm of this exuberant culture and vast landscape, I developed a conceptual photography project with text. The theme focused on images of shifting borders/fences in the steppes, which reflect the tension between the sedentary and the nomadic ways of life in a changing Mongolia. My project was part of Varsha Nair's international Womanifesto exhibition in 2006, linking artists around the world through web-based projects: www.womanifesto.org.
- Art Forms And Cultures I Would Like To Engage With
- To link Aoka with a network of cultural practitioners around the world. (Aoka is currently supported by Ashoka, Artemisia Foundation and the Brazilian government as one of the most innovative social business enterprise models in Brazil.) See the following mission and objectives.
Mission: Aoka provides sustainable trips of quality leisure, which facilitate intercultural exchange and raise the social and environmental consciousness of all participants at diverse natural and cultural sites.
Objectives
-Maximize sustainable management practices in all our operational activities in accordance with the Global Sustainable Tourism Criteria.
-Encourage intercultural exchange through participatory and educational tours, workshops and volunteer projects.
-Empower local communities by building their capacity to generate supplementary income through sustainable tourism.
-Support and promote locally grown and/or made products at each visited site.
-Affirm the value of local traditions and natural resources through the culturally sensitive and environmentally conscious faciltiation of our itineraries.
-Cultivate a partnership network of community members, NGO workers, specialists and facilitators based on sustainability, transparency and fair trade.
-Establish the AOKA Fund thanks to the donations of our travelers, which will go to specific community development projects decided upon by the communities themselves at each site.
- My Creative Influences & Favorite Artists
- So many have informed my work here and in the field: Ashoka, Massive Change, Buckminster Fuller, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Varsha Nair, Navin Rawanchaikul, The Beauty Suit Collective, Studio Xang Program for Migrant Children from Burma, Compeung, WEAVE, Pun Pun, Batuque de Nagô , The Laundromat Project, The Urban Homestead Project, JACA, Superflex, N55
- My Artistic Affiliations
- Compeung, The Colcha Project, Womanifesto, Fly with Me to Another World, The Urban Homestead Project
- My Web link
- http://www.aoka.com.br
Karen Demavivas's Images
Karen Demavivas's Blog
Highlights from our time with local communities in the Atlantic rainforests of Brazil
Posted on December 5, 2010 at 7:22pm 0 Comments 0 Favorites
Aoka in Transition: Ubatuba and Paraty, Brazil, April-May 2010
Posted on June 12, 2010 at 12:04am 0 Comments 0 Favorites
The Aoka team recently traveled along the coast of Southeastern Brazil where mountains lush with Atlantic rainforests merge with pristine beaches. We engaged with the three Afro-descendant and fisherfolk communities of Camburi, Campinho and Fazenda in order to get a sense of their rhythm of life and see how some of their needs and desires for community development can be met through sustainable tourism. We sat down in forest areas, village squares, porches and a 19th century flour… Continue Stay In Touch
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