Citizen Art

La Voz de Galicia – December 18, 2020 →

Cristina PatoFor the Carasso Foundation, art is a vehicle of citizenship because it «cultivates empathy, promotes democracy, and appeals to social responsibility. Created in 2010 in honor of Nina and Daniel Carasso, the founder of Danone, this foundation, with its roots in France and Spain, promotes the values of the Carasso family through two great lines: sustainable nutrition and citizen art. And although for some time they have been working with institutions and supporting and accompanying projects of non profit organizations, this is the first year they give an award to the idea that the agents of change in society are really artists and their projects (tangible and intangible).

Through this award, I learned the story of the French-Algerian artist Neïl Beloufa, who constructs learning spaces through art in the outskirts of Paris; and of Patrick Bouchain, the architect who revolutionized the way of transforming industrial spaces into cultural platforms. And I was moved by the work of the Sevillian Santiago Cirugeda, who with his collective Recetas Urbanas, Urban Recipes, achieves citizens’ participation and social inclusion through the construction of meeting points such as the Centro Sociocomunitario Cañada Real, the Community Center Cañada Real. And with the work of the artist Julio Jara, who has lived for the past 15 years, with a community of people without home in the San Martín de Porres shelter, and who understands that «exclusion is related to the lack of access to culture, expression, and creation.»

Learning about their work, in times like these, was an inspiration for me because each one of us does what we can with our environment, and each one of them is transforming his environment, and with that little bit of soil they are changing the world.

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