April 12-14, 2013
Teachers College, Columbia University
Macy Art Gallery
525 West 120th St., New York, NY 10027

The most avid media makers today are not professionals but young people who are actively engaging with their worlds. The biggest manufacturer of cameras today is not Nikon or Canon but makers of cellphones. As members of the Informational Society the youth of the industrialized world are digital users, creators and consumers. In today’s world media offers an historical opportunity to generate and distribute information motivating young people and facilitating interaction. Knowledge is not anymore something that is kept and then transmitted to the students, but something that can be collectively created and shared.

Conversations Across Cultures: Youth Media Visions highlights newly emerging cultures and explores the pedagogic potentialities of learning with and from media produced by young people. The three-day-conversations weekend will generate a space for dialogue bringing together educators, youth and media professionals from NY and from overseas who use video as a means of expression, reflection and learning in formal and informal educational settings. The event, co-organized by Teachers College Columbia University and United Nations Alliance of Civilizations, focuses on how young people explore diversity, migration and social inclusion, through the means of video production. A central feature of the weekend conversations will be presentations and screenings of youth video productions in the Macy Art Gallery as part of the exhibition Youth Media Visions, April 12-19, 2013.

Participation to the conference is free and open to all audiences.

For more information contact youthmediavisions@gmail.com

Program Schedule April 12–14, 2013

 

Friday, April 12

5:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.: Opening and Reception
Macy Gallery.
With the presence of the High Representative of the UNAOC,
His Excellency Mr. Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser and
Dr. Susan Fuhrman, President of Teachers College

• Presentation of Conversations Across Cultures:
  • Dr. Judith Burton
    Professor of Art and Art Education
    Columbia University Teachers College
  • Jordi Torrent
    Project Manager
    Media and Information Literacy Education
    United Nations Alliance of Civilizations
  • Remarks by Laia Solé
    Visual artist and art educator
    Doctoral student at the Program Art & Art Education, Teachers College
• A celebration of youth media productions. Works will include video productions made by young people from countries around the world.
• Performance: City Kids, New York
  The mission of the CityKids Foundation is to empower urban young people, ages 13 to 19, through arts and educational programs to develop the knowledge, skills and confidence. www.citykids.com

 

Saturday, April 13

9:00 a.m. – 9:30 a.m.: Breakfast provided by Teachers College

9:30 a.m.: Welcome and opening remarks, Professor Judith M. Burton

10:00 a.m. – 10:30 a.m.: PLURAL+ (UNAOC/IOM)

PLURAL + Youth Video Festival is an empowering initiative for young people to express their own views regarding MIGRATION, DIVERSITY and SOCIAL INCLUSION using media as their mode of communication. The PLURAL+ Youth Video Festival provides youth with a platform for the global distribution of their videos, recognizing youth as change makers while ensuring at the same time that their voices reach policy and decision makers as well as audiences across the world.  pluralplus.unaoc.org/

10:30 a.m. – 11:15 a.m.: Wapikoni Mobile, Canada

Wapikoni Mobile is a mobile studio for training and creation with media, which has been circulating for nine years among First Nation communities in Quebec. Wapikoni Mobile was created by the filmmaker Manon Barbeau and co-founded by the Atikamekw Nation Council and the First Nations Youth Council. Wapikoni Mobile aims to foster the First Nation youth’s expression through video and music. It encourages emerging talents, facilitating exchanges and communication between youth within their community and the wider world as a means to overcome the isolation lived by First Nation youth in Quebec. wapikoni.tv/

11:15 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.: Chinh, India

CHINH is Meenakshi Vinay Rai’s initiative to reposition local in global. CHINH supports social initiatives promoting causes of children and marginalized nomadic communities through harnessing traditional wisdom, art and culture and rediscovering them in contemporary contexts.
Founders of an Early Education Web channel (www.chinh.in) and Community Web Channel (www.chinhwebchannel.in), Chinh is passionate about creating films on issues of social relevance, education and culture. Their extensive research in nomadic communities from the past seven years has resulted in launching Certificate course in Nomadic Studies & establishment of NOW (Nomadic Orchestra of World). Presently they are actively engaged in building a movement- ‘Reposition Local in Global’ by sensitizing young people on nomadic issues.

12:00 p.m. – 12:15 p.m.: Global Action Project, New York

Global Action Project’s mission is to work with young people most affected by injustice to build the knowledge, tools and relationships needed to create media for community power, cultural expression and political change. Founded in 1991, Global Action Project has provided media-arts and leadership education for thousands of youth living in underserved communities across New York City and the country. global-action.org/video.

12:15 p.m. – 1:00 p.m.: Discussion

Open discussion with Teachers College students and the audience

1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.: Break for lunch

2:00 p.m. – 2:45 p.m.: Educational Video Center, New York

The Educational Video Center is a non-profit youth media organization dedicated to teaching documentary video as a means to develop the artistic, critical literacy, and career skills of young people, while nurturing their idealism and commitment to social change. Founded in 1984, EVC has evolved from a single video workshop for teenagers from Manhattan’s Lower East Side to become an internationally acclaimed leader in youth media education. EVC’s teaching methodology brings together the powerful traditions of student-centered progressive education and independent community documentary.
www.evc.org/

2:45 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.: One minute junior (UNICEF)

The OneMinutesJr. is an international, arts-based initiative that gives 12-20 year-old youth, especially those who are underprivileged or marginalised, the opportunity to have their voices heard and to share their ideas, dreams, fascinations, anxieties and viewpoints on the world. During workshops, youth are taught basic camera and directing skills, story-telling, teamwork and how to think creatively about issues and representation. Each participant develops his/her own story based on the workshop theme and produces a sixty-second video that is screened at the conclusion of the workshop and distributed via digital platforms and broadcasters. The project is a partnership between UNICEF and the One Minutes Foundation. More than 3000 youngsters from 97 countries have taken part in the programme since its inception in 2002 and the one minute videos are collected at www.theoneminutesjr.org

3:30 p.m. – 4:15 p.m.: Fundación KINE, Argentina

Fundación Kine is an NGO created in 2003 in Argentina to promote social, cultural and educational inclusion of youth, working with visual literacy as a means of expression. Their work is supported through projects that are developed throughout the whole country, and are coordinated and integrated into different context through local institutions and a network of teams which allow them to promote local development. www.fundacionkine.org.ar/

4:15 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.: Cinema In Course (Cinema en curs), Spain 

Cinema In Course (Cinema en curs) is a pedagogic program by A Bao A Qu (Barcelona, Spain) of and with film; it pursues a pressing double objective: to draw young people to cinema as a form of art, creation and culture, and to explore the pedagogic potential of cinema creation. It began in Catalonia in 2005 and is now implemented in primary and secondary schools with pupils between 3 and 18 years old in Catalonia, Galicia and, since 2013, Argentina (Córdoba). The programme is carried out in three key areas: the Workshops; the Training of teachers and the Applied Research Laboratory, which generates resources, materials, proposals and methodologies. www.cinemaencurs.org

5:00 p.m. – 5:45 p.m.: Discussion

Open discussion with Teachers College students and the audience

Sunday, April 14

8:30 a.m. – 9:00 a.m.: Breakfast provided by Teachers College

9:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.: Workshop: Educational Video Center, New York

Only for registered students: A 3-hour workshop focussing on media production. Available for credit (1 credit) for eligible students of Columbia University and affiliates. For more information please contact: allmond@tc.edu

Educational Video Center is a non-profit youth media organization dedicated to teaching documentary video as a means to develop the artistic, critical literacy, and career skills of young people, while nurturing their idealism and commitment to social change. Founded in 1984, EVC has evolved from a single video workshop for teenagers from Manhattan’s Lower East Side to become an internationally acclaimed leader in youth media education. EVC’s teaching methodology brings together the powerful traditions of student-centered progressive education and independent community documentary.

12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m.: Final general session

Open discussion with conference participants