Foix, the mid term course

It's second day of my mid-term course connect with my EVS here in France. I arrived after more then 12 hours traveling from the North (Мetz) to attend program that will show to me better and more concrete things about my work as a volunteer, about my opportunities connected with my project and also to meet some of the other European Volunteers that I met on my on-arrival training.

Yesterday morning it was funny when I saw the Turkish and the Russian volunteers waiting in a front of the „foyer“ because it was locked, and it was 06:00 am.

After the coffee and the croissant in the city, the door was finally open and we went in our rooms. I was positively surprised when I saw that I'll be room mate with Davide, Italian volunteer that choose to go in South of France (Bordo) for his EVS.

When we went to start our activities in the big room we figure out that we are not alone. We're together with some newbies that I see for first time and obviously also volunteers like me. After the introduction of the organizer of the mid term Stella, we understood that part of the participants are here with Us for their on arrival training.

Everything start very good, the activities, the working groups, the reflection about our work, the place where we live, the people that we work with etc.
In the evening we attend class for traditional French dances and the local people from here were very happy to show us all those different steps in the dancing. We taste wine rose, usually produced in this region and also some of the food that the people prepare here.


Today we start in divided group, the newbies (on arrivals) have the activities that I had in May and we concentrate on our work more in details. We speak about the key competences and we need to make short brain storm about all the things that happens to Us since we come in France.
The key competences are very important about explaining the special levels in our work, connected with the developing of the new skills that we have opportunities to learn here.

Time for a break, I mean pause with coffee au lait!

>> Basquiat o_O

I can write for Basquiat a lot. He is one of the modernist that I'm really impressed by. He made a new deffinition for living. Unique artist with short life but big history behind. You can find more about him here and here. There are thousands of pages where you can read about his biography, paintings and private life but in short Basquiat died from a drug overdose in 1988 aged just 27, having created around 3,000 works in eight years.

Here I will just mention that during my visit of Basel, Swiss I had opportunity to visit The Beyeler Foundation gallery and to check very big retrospective exhibition of the art works made by Basquiat. The exhibition features more than 100 paintings, drawings and objects in Basquiat’s distinctive bold and bright style, exposed in few expo rooms. Many have come from private collections., It was a great feeling to see all this paintings and installations that he made. Combination of messages, colors, creatures and freaky materials.



Some of the pictures that I've made with my mobile, they are not good as the originals but at least I have visible memory except the moments in my mind that I've saw the works from this great artist.

Street aRt w0rksh0p @ Voice Of Art

The idea of this workshop is to present to the participants basic knowledge about the street art as accepted part of the contemporary art. In the last 20 years we observe how the art that we see on the streets becomes more concrete and the style of painting become better. There are new waves in the street art which nowadays are more attractive from some of the contemporary art that is presented in the world wide galleries.

The street art start as a subculture art. The first painters are some artists who show revolt to the society and to the main politic that the global society create for their citizens. The last days on the streets around the world we can see something that is more then will to tell something that the people will read. The street art is something that evolute as all the other branches in the art field.

Making street art means playing in same time with colors, forms, concept and adrenaline that is one of the main engines for expressing yourself on walls, trains and places not so easy visible for the normal people. Today is more easy to discuss about street art from perspective that is more accepted from the society as art. There are artists who expose their works even in galleries and museums.



The people start using different materials to bring their ideas more real. From old school grafiiti to colorful, from 3D to comics. Great illustrators we can find sharing their art on the streets, drawing their stuff right here – right now, or sticking their already made stickers.

We'll have the opportunity to see the whole pallet of variations of colors, styles, artists names and stories but also and to create our own.

The idea: „Sketch become reality“ will be real.
..trough letters, words, lines, characters, stories we'll try to present our imagination and our message in same time.

Artists like Banksy or BLU change the history of art. Banksy messages are very famous. He made alarm for the capitalistic society, made a bigger awareness for the social excluded groups, and all this with his works. The society in which we live today, change everyday, the taste of the audience become more diversity, different. Street art like part of this diversity society gives new ways of seeing the concept of living, it's accept solidarity in a way of making the society better [beautiful] place for living.

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

APV for Voice of Art

This Friday we had opportunity to organize the APV meeting for our next PRoject that should take place in October in Arry. The group leadres from 6 different contry arrive in Metz then with the Together minibus we went to Arry. During the weekend we've discuss about the program and the activities that we want to implement for this project. How better we can improve our youth exchange, what we can change from the basic idea, what we can add more in the program so it will be more interesting for all the participants. ..



We speak about the workshops: street art, painting, making art installations from organic and recycled materials and about one new workshop that is result from this meeting. Video and multimedia workshop in which we will try to mix some art moments that will be recorded during the exchange and mixed with the music that will be composed on the sound workshop.
We also speak about showing the best photography that the participants will create.


This APV meeting helps the leaders to explore the place where the project will be held and to see how we can use all the facilities provided by it.
During one of the days we had opportunity to show them the center for contemporary art Pompidou where we'll have part of our activities and also to show them some of the important places in Metz.
The perfect dinner in the city help Us to become friends and try to give the best from Us so we can make a great project that will be part of the beautifull memories of our participants.

We all hope on effective youth exChange.

more photos from Pompidou in the album @Potru vs. @Pompidou

Listen to your eyes

Interesting exhibition that I visit in Metz. Few rooms that you need to visit one by one in the way like the author wants. We start with one room in which there was white canvas and the audience was asked to keep silence during the visiting process.
From that white room with white canvas or something we went in very dark room. In the middle there was a book closed in a glass box. Only this part of the room (the center) was lighted and also there were some speakers in the dark part of the room from where some voice was telling something.

The next room that we visit was room full with television (TV sets). There were about 20 TV's and they were in two lines one on the top of the other. On the top line TV's there was a women that with deaf signs was telling some story. I couldn't understand. On the line under, on every one of the TV's there was the same experimental video going in different time in which the scenes were not actually connected a lot between but in general were showing some explosion or something.








The next room was separated on two. In the two parts there was screening of documentaries. I took the head phones and start watching the first documentary. It was very strange movie. There was chore of deaf people and they were actually trying to sing some religious song. It was strange, morbid, weird to watch this. O.k., not so much to watch it because they were dressed in some church uniform but the sound. I start feel sorry about them in one moment. The other film was with the same topic. The problem of deaf people. There were people standing in a group and expressing their feelings for a different topics. Telling parts of their life.







We open a door that took us up to a stairs. In the end of the stairs there was different piece of art. I think that is some art that belongs to the gallery but is not part of the exhibition. We couldn't find connection between this piece and the other parts of the exhibition. It was something like big light that in the past was used for old TV or I made this comparison only.



Big white room with 3 ventilators in the center. Every one of the ventilators for one of the walls. Sticked video tape makes a circle form. From the air produced by the ventilators they keep circling on one centimeter from the wall. It was first time to see that, I didn't know before that actually this kind of process can exist.

On one of the walls there were lines with numbers I don't remember now what was the connection between the lines. Behind the wall from one hole light was projecting circle on the wall.
That was all from the exhibition. On the end there was the last room with one more documentary. About the silent melody. Piano artist is playing silence something like John Cage "4'33"" (you need to check this with the numbers :D)
Calm movie, bring me peace on the end.

~interactive theater performance

Few months ago I visit interesting theater performance in Metz. It was troupe of actors that before the show collect different topics from the audience.
I've missed that part because I was almost late for the performance.. I catch them few minutes before they start with the rolls. For me it was difficult in the beginning to understand what are they speaking about, I try to hear some words that are familiar to me. My french was bad in that time, not that now is perfect but at least I'm in the learning process for all this months here and I hope that I have a bit of progress.

So, there was one actor who lead the whole performance, he was reading from the papers from the audience and the group had few seconds to invent situation connected with the subject written on the paper. The topics were connected with some celebrities from France, with the history and the politics here. The actors were creating humorist sketches and every next one was even better then the last one. It was not only conversation, dialogs, it was physical theater, pantomime, theater of the absurd, grotesque theater etc..they were mixing all forms of stage performing.








There were people from the audience that sometimes start speaking in the middle of their sketch but the actors in the same moment reinvent the whole situation in a way that they take the information from the person.
It was show in two parts. While they made a break, there was the bar inside the theater so we had a time for a drink also.

They continue in the same way, with a lot of jokes and funny moments. The guider trough the whole performance change more then 30 personalities and the group create about 15 small roll acts in which they use the most sophisticated way to transform in every second in every move. Not a lot of stage design, not a lot from costimography, even the technical team was not so good, they had few sound problems. But I'll never forget the dynamic that they had on the stage, the list of music that they choose and also the was how they combine the stories, mix them and how they make 2 hours and a half show without any problem in a front of every type of audience. I hear that from October they start with new idea, with a new concept, but with the same free style idea so I'll use the first opportunity to go and see them and this time understand bit more. All at all this is show for laughter. And this team have the best skills for making the people happy and with a smile on their faces after watching their show.

Perfect 2 hours and something!

p.s. and on the end, the funny part was that they open the main door from where the audience can go out and basically that was their last roll for the show.