This exhibition presents sexual diversity as something universal
to all cultures, it has been created for young people between the
ages of 12 and 20, so they can understand that there is a wide range
of options for their sexual life both now and trough their lives.
It contains an appreciation of multiple legacies of Human Experience
in different times and places.
In Colombia, as in many
other countries Homo, Bi, Trans, Lesb, are very hard issues to come
to terms with when you are 12 to 20 years old and do not have an
educational or economic support that let you speak up freely, so
our purpose is to help these boys and girls grow strong from their
inside.
Amor Universal Love will
present photographic works, publications, film and objects, and
will tour public libraries, schools and educational venues in Colombia.
A Visual Arts Proposal: Colombian Mainstream
views on GLBT Identity-
Activism and the Defense of GLBT Sexual
Diversity.
Human society, by virtue of its nature,
abounds with Expressions about specific group Life Styles: concepts
and ideas that project collective identity to the rest of the society.
Each community´s Cultural Expressions plays a decisive role in
the dialogue and conflict resolution played out both within and amongst
communities.
Active participation in the social Imaginarium
of each collectivity has enormous bearing on the manner in which its
existence is played out and its validity upheld, thus providing meaningful
cultural perceptions about each groups co existential roles. . At present,
there have been few visible cultural manifestations attesting to a meaningful
participation of the GLBT community in our countrys daily public life.
In the realm of cultural products, it is difficult to encounter specific
manifestations of the dynamics of the members of the GLBT community-namely,
symbols and expressions of the creativity, the lifestyle, ideas and
experiences inherent to this particular milieu.
In the Colombian collective Imaginarium,
the members of the GLBT community are perceived and depicted as marginal
individuals, hidden, often sordid and frequently characterized by the
mass media as whimsically fancied exotic feathered specimens or ridiculous,
wild frenzied or eccentric stereotypical figures. These images of homosexuality
have been construed not so much by the members of the GLBT community
per se but rather by agents external to it who, seeing it from the outside
persist on clinging to superficial stereotypes that are frequently used
to disseminate negative messages about homosexuality-or, as an advertisement
strategy for audiovisual products such as soap operas, movies or mass
consumer products wherein humor operates at a double standard, as such
developing in an environment laden with homophobia, lewdness, and rarely
any recognition of dignity, human worth, or atonement. We accept not
being insulted on the streets in exchange for allowing for ridicule,
charicaturization and depiction the way the mainstream decides to do
it, thus allowing that our public profile by constructed by others and
not ourselves.
Rarely have we taken on the task of presenting
a complete and open minded image of what a community as complex and
diverse as ours in point of fact actually is, almost never have we presented
public expressions about our way of interpreting, thinking, living and
loving. Instead, we have spent more time hiding or assuming low profiles.
Such describes in a nutshell the way in which the Colombian GLBT community
participates in the national collective Imaginarium. Public events such
as the June Pride Parade in the streets of Bogotá, the Barranquilla
Carnival, the Rosa Film Festival, and publication of the achievements
of public figures known to be homosexual are those which contribute
to substantiation of the reality of GLBT Identity to public opinion.
Every effort springing from within the
community to convey information about who we are and how we live both
to the whole of society and to our own is a contribution to the strengthening
of our community, towards a respect of our rights and the construction
of bridges of communication between our community and other social groups.
Visual Arts: Seeds of
Relativism in Public Opinion.
This proposal advances the building of
a traveling photographic exhibit that presents the homosexual condition
as a universal aspect of human nature and culture, widespread throughout
multiple and different kinds of Communities, Countries, Social and Racial
Groups, Religions, Casts, and Families, trans-culturally and historically,
thus pervading all Human Kind. . This Project relies both on the New
York University fales Library´s databank of images, documents,
and on the know how in exhibition and cultural program development
of the Arte Hoy Foundation in Bogota together with the support in terms
of content and research of Corporacion Colombia Diversa.
Why it is important to make
this exhibition?
The wealth of daily Expressions contained
within Homosexuality within the scope of its individual and collective
aspects comprises a way of seeing and experiencing the unique life ways
of the GLBT community. These expressions are nothing less than the materialization
of a plethora of universal grandiose custom types that cultivate the
cutting edge of creativity and inventivity in human affairs, i.e.ū the
sphere of ludic affairs, entertainment, reflective, intuitive, and musing
activity, musical tastes, fashion tendencies, literature, film, manners
of interrelation such as invisibility, concealment and revealing of
the self. Most prominent among the former is the production of symbolic
audio visual and literary content, literary, namely, those elements
which testify to the GLBT communitys identity from within. This wealth
of expressions constitutes an ideal communication vehicle to attain
an interrelation amongst ourselves and the society at large.
The Documentary image, interviews and testimonials
directly represent our lifestyle, thoughts, beliefs and ideals as a
universal community present in all the countries and cultures of the
world, ever since. For organizations like Colombia Diversa it is vitally
important to develop photographic and audiovisual images, events, documents,
instances of communication and cultural products that work as a channel
of interconnection between the GLBT community and the rest of the population,
the above with the intention of providing quality information both to
GLBT individuals who havent yet dared assume their homosexuality, as
well as to the rest of the population that lacks a comprehensive understanding
of what it means to be homosexual and continue to see it from the point
of view of fear and ignorance.
There is no country or culture
that hasnšt benefited from the contributions of homosexual personalities
in a multiplicity of aspects i.e. in science, politics, thought, economics,
communication or the arts. As such, our responsibility as members of this
collectivity is that of turning it into something of great importance
within the society in which we live.
The Pali word metta is a multi-significant
term meaning loving-kindness, friendliness, goodwill, benevolence, fellowship,
amity, concord, inoffensiveness and non-violence. The Pali commentators
define metta as the strong wish for the welfare and happiness of others
(parahita-parasukha-kamana). Essentially metta is an altruistic attitude
of love and friendliness as distinguished from mere amiability based
on self-interest. Through metta one refuses to be offensive and renounces
bitterness, resentment and animosity of every kind, developing instead
a mind of friendliness, accommodativeness and benevolence which seeks
the well-being and happiness of others. True metta is devoid of self-interest.
It evokes within a warm-hearted feeling of fellowship, sympathy and
love, which grows boundless with practice and overcomes all social,
religious, racial, political and economic barriers. Metta is indeed
a universal, unselfish and all-embracing love.
Metta makes one a pure font of well-being
and safety for others. Just as a mother gives her own life to protect
her child, so metta only gives and never wants anything in return. To
promote one's own interest is a primordial motivation of human nature.
When this urge is transformed into the desire to promote the interest
and happiness of others, not only is the basic urge of self-seeking
overcome, but the mind becomes universal by identifying its own interest
with the interest of all. By making this change one also promotes one's
own well-being in the best possible manner.
Metta is the protective and
immensely patient attitude of a mother who forbears all difficulties for
the sake of her child and ever protects it despite its misbehavior. Metta
is also the attitude of a friend who wants to give one the best to further
one's well-being. If these qualities of metta are sufficiently cultivated
through metta-bhavana -- the meditation on universal love -- the result
is the acquisition of a tremendous inner power which preserves, protects
and heals both oneself and others.
Apart from its higher implications,
today metta is a pragmatic necessity. In a world menaced by all kinds
of destructiveness, metta in deed, word and thought is the only constructive
means to bring concord, peace and mutual understanding. Indeed, metta
is the supreme means, for it forms the fundamental tenet of all the higher
religions as well as the basis for all benevolent activities intended
to promote human well-being.
The suffix of zi (tzu) in
ancient China was a respectful way of addressing a sagely writer.
The Chinese writing for Confucius
is Kong Fu Zi, with Kong being his last name, and Fu Zi (an extended form
of Zi) an honorable way of addressing him. Mo Zi was another great thinker
in Chinese history. Compared with Confucius, the teachings of Mo Zi (c.470
BC-391 BC), by contemporary Western standards, are more democratic and
other-regarding.
Today, two aspects of Mo Zi
continue to be quoted in a largely Confucian China: universal love, and
peace (no war). Mo Zi also strikes one as unabashedly materialistic,
although his materialism was not "money as an end," but an emphasis on
people's material well-being; policies that do not contribute to this
end, such as rituals, music, extravagant entertainment (Mo Zi was for
economical rule), were to be abandoned. For this reason, Mo Zi was sometimes
associated with pragmatism. Mo Zi, together with a number of others,
constituted a strong counter-current to Confucianism, only to be partially
absorbed into mainstream Confucian learning eventually. For centuries,
the teachings of Mo Zi were on the periphery while Confucian learning
constituted mainstream Chinese learning.
Special thanks to: Richard Winger, Daniel Zentgraf,
Marvin Taylor, Michael Wilke, Larry Corwin, Nelson Santos, Gregory Lynch,
Vlamyr Vizcaya & The Latino Group, Ana Maria Santos, Virgilio Barco,
Angélica Jaramillo, Ector Simpson, Germán Rincón, Marcela
Sánchez, Fernando Serrano y Marina Talero and all the people that
has supported this initiative.
