Recently the Tembe Art Studio in Moengo celebrated its first birthday. The project is an initiative of visual artist Marcel Pinas, who wants to share his experience and knowledge with the Surinamese community, starting in Moengo, in his birth district Marowijne. In this way Pinas wants to motivate and stimulate especially the youth, to develop their talents.
The TAS-project has a very broad set up and contains among other things art-, dance- and music lessons in the Tembe Art Studio. A lot of work was done in 2010 to complete the Afaka Guesthouse, restaurant Masanga and a training facility at Ofia Olo. Furthermore there were also national en international art- and educational exchange programs amongst which a photography project with Maartje Jaquet from the Netherlands.
The Artist in Residence-program which is discussed on this blog in the contributions from Charl Landvreugd and Wouter Klein Velderman, is a key segment of the TAS-project. This project has been developed to be much more than a fun and informative period for the artist in residence. There is close and intense contact with the children and adults on site, and an art installation is created and left behind in Moengo. It is the intention that a real bond is forged. From the TAS-press release: “The TAS stands for ultimate creation: the creation of works of art in totally different surroundings and circumstances, but also to learn more about oneself, how to deal with situations and how to react to them.”
The first Surinamese Artist in Residence (AiR) was visual artist Jhunry Udenhout. The firts artist from abroad was Pieter Kemink, ceramics-instructor from Amsterdam. The first group to actually reside in the AiR-accommodation were Jakup Ferri and Wouter Klein Velderman from the Netherlands, Sheena Rose from Barbados and Charl Landvreugd from New York, USA. On the Sranan Art-blog we will include regular reports in word as well as image on the Artists in Residence.
For additional information and visual materials, visit the website or follow Tembe Art on Facebook.
TEXT Marieke Visser
TRANSLATION (to English) Cassandra Gummels-Relyveld
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