the Project

  • Babel: Crossing Cultural Boundaries is a youth driven, creative arts exhibition for youth of all ethnicities between the ages of 15-30.
  • It is a six-month collaboration that examines the living realities of people on different sides of a current international crisis and how they can build bridges to transform the situation.
  • This will provide a base from which the participants will explore, elucidate, understand and link themes and common threads in our own multicultural community.
  • The Babel Project encourages participants and audiences to consider Wellington’s future as a peaceful, tolerant, diverse and multi-cultural society, and highlights the need for communities to build bridges.
  • It endeavors to enhance a connectedness and relationship between youth and their community, environment, heritage, peers, society and each other.
  • The Babel Project also creates a successful environment for the expression of arts in multicultural Wellington, encouraging interaction in many different ways to create new, vigorous and complex cultural interpretations, and to express fresh and original artistic perspectives emanating from our unique environment. In turn, this encourages youth development within their chosen workplace.

The project begins on 21st April 2007 and culminates in an exhibition in September 2007. 10 participants are chosen from the Wellington area with different artistic streams, which range from photography, collage, sculpture, painting, screen-printing, graphic design, film, and installation. They meet in Wellington with the facilitators over a period of three months at three forum’s where questions, ideas, situations, self and community reflections will be discussed and debated. There will also be input from local Iwi groups and local artists expressing their Maori Heritage through Art. They are then given support over the last few months while creating their art work in response to this.

    We will use the experiences of the facilitators – a Palestinian and an Israeli currently resident in Wellington – to explore the Palestinian and Israeli crisis in its modern and historical context, to trigger fundamental questions that are relevant to us all, and particularly to a multicultural community, and an interfaith community.
  • Who are we when we belong to a certain culture, community, country and tradition?
  • How does history affect a culture and how does the Palestinian issue correspond with Maori in New Zealand, in discussing ideas of displacement, indigenous issues, land and its meaning and tradition?
  • How do these factors contribute to each culture represented by the different artists and what are some of the varied responses to environmental conditions and historical circumstances faced by humans in individual cultural contexts?
  • How is a culturally diverse city possible for our future?
  • How do we therefore see Wellington, and the wonderful possibilities our environment and situation offers?

It also acknowledges the Council’s recognition & support for migrant/ethnic cultures in planning Wellington’s future. Only by discussing all of these aspects and their meaning, giving voice to their role in our cultural development, can we begin to harvest the rich and unique artistic vision and expression that exists in New Zealand.

Artists are given workbooks to document thoughts, sketches and ideas that arise from the forums. These will be exhibited along with a photographic exhibition and documentary taken during the six-month process.
There are three phases of the project.

  1. Phase One: Preparation and Outreach
    • Initial filming – Israel/Palestine, December 17-19th 2006: Tal and Katrina commence filming in Israel/Palestine for the documentary of the project
    • Outreach and selection of youth participants. Outreach primarily to Arts Schools, University and Secondary Schools to attract applications, and the selection of 10 ethnic participants. (Maori, Pacific Island, Pakeha, Asian, Arabic, African, European).

  2. Phase Two: The Forums

    • April 21st 2007, Introduction to multiculturalism. Participants will explore concepts of culture and multiculturalism through guest presentations and reflection on their own lives and aspirations. Questions regarding The City of Wellington, as a multicultural metropolis and a viable future will be discussed. Who are we as New Zealanders, how does the UN Declaration of Human Rights Affects us, and our thoughts on this. A youth perspective of these issues and their voice will be explored.
    • 6th May 2007, Crossing cultural boundaries. Analysis of the Middle East crisis and lessons for multiculturalism in Aotearoa-New Zealand. The New Zealand Maori perspective art and reference. Workshops on conflict resolution and cross-cultural bridge building. Deeper exploration, through World Cafe format, of personal, interpersonal and community aspects of multiculturalism.
    • 26th May 2007, Art scape. Learning how to express concepts of cultural bridge building through personal or collaborative art. Art and business, how to manage your career. The exhibition feel and individual pieces discussed. Feedback and evaluations and conclusions from the group.
  3. Phase Three: Exhibition and follow-up
    • September/October 2007: Art works produced by participants will be exhibited, along with a documentary of the process, at a major Wellington gallery.
    • Follow-up: Participants will be introduced to cross-cultural processes, networks and events in the community for further engagement if so desired.

AIMS AND PROJECTED OUTCOMES.

  • The Babel Project will help generate a community climate conducive to peace and tolerance.
    It is a youth driven developmental project that encourages a connection between, society, community, peers, culture, differences and the medium of creative arts. .
  • It is a project that encourages youth participation and focuses on youth’s voice, giving respect and weight to their final artwork and opinion. .
  • It recognises our rights as human beings as stated in the UN Declaration of Human Rights, and discussions around this will provide an important part of the process..
  • It will provide a model of conflict resolution and non-violence thus encouraging individuals and groups to choose peace and tolerance over violence in their interactions at home, school, work, and in the community..
  • It will provide citizens with examples of peacemaking through the project and with the facilitators coming from a conflict-ridden country, to demonstrate that violence is neither a preferred or inevitable response to conflict. The community as a whole, schools and other educational institutions will be invited to participate..
  • It will provide citizens with contacts to conflict resolution and peacemaking services that they can turn to in order to assist them in learning conflict resolution strategies and skills..
  • The project promotes local initiative, while honoring, respecting and celebrating cultural diversity and our international ties. .
  • The exhibition is the result of the evolution of discussions, debates and consultations. Through the forums presented and topics discussed, participants are encouraged to listen to each other, acknowledge each other’s differences and diversity. .
  • We recognize the need not to be afraid of articulating the complexity of the art and to respect the position from which individual artists may choose to create..
  • ‘Babel’ has arisen from a desire to promote a broader participation both in the practice and through discussions and the need to foster engagement. It is about building bridges, encouraging dialogues, creating and accepting opportunities..