Students in Berlin May 2010

The students came together with Pia Kleber and Stephan Clarkson. There was as well Mike Lawrence who had already spend some time in Europe to pursue his studies. There was a day conference at Humboldt University, May 5th and a meeting at the Institute for Cultural Diplomacy the following day with lunch in the garden of the House of Literature on Fasanenstrasse. The evenings were filled with going twice to the Schaubuehne to end up then at Terzo Mondo.

One day conference at Humboldt University May 5th, 2010

Presentations continued as last November in Toronto during the Conference "Performing in new Europe" after the fall of the wall in Berlin 1989. The papers by the students reflect ongoing research and work on their thesis under the general topic whether or not cultural agencies can alter the security agenda. Under cultural agences can be understood street theatre or some other form of theatre. As one paper highlighted, the inclusion or not of certain actors in a play attempting to address the issue of genocide marks as well the possible existence of censorship when authorities wish to shape the official discourse in Rwanda. The same applies to press freedom in Russia or to Israel treating certain migrant groups as second class citizens who do not have pure blood and therefore is not accepted as blood donation. Discriminatory practices on the basis of cultural and ethnic differences are always haphazard and underlines the need to substantiate the perception of students in order to deal with policy related issues.

Visiting professor giving his comments to what he has just heard

Prof. Stephan Clarkson giving his opinion about the papers having been presented

Mike Lawrence is assistant to both Prof. Stephan Clarkson and Prof. Pia Kleber

Session at the Institute for Cultural Diplomacy

After a Presentation by MarkC. Donfried, Executive director and founder of the institute for cultural diplomacy, there followed

Progress made by Kids' Guernica since Nov. 2009

by Hatto Fischer

together with Monique Kissel and Remi

Initially the students of the class of Prof. Stephan Clarkson and Prof. Pia Kleber wanted to join the Kids' Guernica exhibition and Symposium about Art Education and Social Justice held in Tallahassee, Florida, USA Jan. 17, 2010 but conditions at that time did not allow for them to come. Nevertheless Kids' Guernica can be taken as a case study in terms of being an agent of change for a bottom-up form of diplomacy. Insofar as this action fosters international understanding by means of furthering collaborative learning at informal level, it will be important to identify and to evaluate this type of movement. Kids' Guernica aims to initiate such cultural actions which can become community wide manifestations of people working through conflicts to attain peace. One example is the Izmir-Chios mural which brought together Greek and Turkish children and thereby promotes intercultural dialogue with painting itself the universal language.