Locomotive Project Is The Latest Solution, Which Intends To Build Bridges Between Young People Of Different Cultural Backgrounds.

Online, December 11, 2010 (Newswire.com) - The aim of our project is to improve Polish and Jewish relation via promoting their common heritage as well to as to prepare an educational tool helping to assimilate Polish newcomers to British educational system.

As a part of the project Click Academy started another pinhole photography workshop. This time it is inspired by the Chanukah celebration. The workshops are taking place in Belsize Square Synagogue in London. The aim of the workshops is to support an assimilation of Polish children in Great Britain into the British educational system as well as to promote Polish and Jewish common heritage.

Click Academy's pinhole photography workshops always arouse big enthusiasm among the workshop participants and it is no different this time. Two days of workshops are taking place on the 5th and 12th of December and have attracted many fans and followers. During the workshops, a mixed group of Polish and Jewish young people are taking photographs by using a unique technique of pinhole photography to create work inspired by the Jewish celebration of Chanukah.

Chanukah is a very happy celebration that lasts for eight days, starting on the 25th day of Kislev, according to the Hebrew calendar or in December in the Georgian calendar and it celebrates the victory of the Macabees over the Seleucid Empire. The most important part of the celebration is lighting candles. The first candle is lit on the first day, second candle on the second day and so on, until all 8 candles are alight (although in times gone by this would have been an oil lamp). The candles are placed in a special candlestick with nine branches called menorah. Menorah is used as a symbol of miracle and cannot be used as lighting. According to the tradition, candles should be lit only by a head of a family, be that a man or woman. Whilst the candles are alight any work or activity is forbidden.

The workshop participant's aim is to show all of the most important aspects of the Chanukah celebration which is currently taking place. Participants were given use of a specially converted room which had been transformed into a large camera obscura and were introduced to pinhole photography through an introduction to other artist's works that have used similar techniques; all of which aided them in the practical and creative aspects of making their own cameras and designing and building the scenery for their photographs. All these works, including those illustrating the Julian Tuwim poem 'Locomotive', will be presented in an exhibition that will be touring various London venues. The works of Julian Tuwim, perceived through children's eyes, is to symbolise positive example of Polish and Jewish common heritage.

The locomotive project, initiated by the Polish artists Marta Kotlarska and Olga Glazik, aims to illustrate one of Tuwim's most celebrated poems through young people using the pinhole photography technique.

Akademia Pstryk / Click Academy (www.ClickAcademy.co.uk) is an art group using pinhole photography as a means of social change through empowering communities. Since 2004 we have been working with young people from ethnic minority groups, to address the issues they face.
Under our supervision, children living in the poorest borough of Warsaw (Poland) were preparing illustrations of a famous Warsaw legend, the exhibition of which was shown in major Warsaw public spaces including Tube stations, the Central Train station and billboard stands around the city. We also prepared a series of public events and pinhole-made animations about Warsaw with them, which were used in an e-guide about the capital of Poland. Young people were encouraged to participate in project planning and in all stages of delivering the project. As a result they felt responsible for the project and learnt that if they work hard they are able to achieve something spectacular. They gave a lot of interviews in press, radio and TV both locally and nationally.

Since 2006 we have been working with traditional Roma settlements in Southern Poland (Małopolska region). Our Nowy Sacz settlement project exhibition was part of EYID UK (European Year of Intercultural Dialog) and was awarded as the best art activity of Gypsy, Roma and Travellers History Month in 2008.

In 2008 Akademia Pstryk along with the Children's Society, delivered the Roma Picture Book project. We worked with Roma children aged 7 to 14 years, hailing from Poland and Slovakia although momentarily living in the borough of Newham in London. We produced a children's picture book, 'Romano Bumburumbum', which expresses Roma culture. It was distributed for free via a series of public exhibitions and street art workshops where the public was invited to engage with the Roma culture and traditions. The project was a great success and received rave professional reviews. It is presented by Everybody Writes as one of the most inspiring projects in the country. The books are now on the shelves in Newham libraries and available for loans.

Sincerely yours

Marta Kotlarska

www.ClickAcademy.co.uk

[email protected]

Tel: +44 7789813378