Meet the Fellows
From Burundi, Rwanda and South Africa:
| Nicholas Kotei Djanie and Lena Slachmuijlder worked toward reconciliation in divided communities through African drumming, music and song. Nicholas a master drummer, dancer, teacher and performer is currently performing in Drumstuck in New York City. Lena a musician, cultural facilitator and an experienced radio and print journalist, currently directs Search For Common Ground's project in the Democratic Republic of Congo. While Brandies International Fellow in 2002-2003, she directed "Studio Ijambo," a radio station affiliated with the organization Search for Common Ground in Burundi. In recent years, they both contributed to a four-day peace festival in Burundi, and Nicholas collaborated with the Rwandan National Olympic Ballet to create a dance-drama telling the story of the Rwandan genocide and the efforts underway towards reconciliation. They wrote: "We both believe, based on our experiences, in the creative and spiritual power of drumming, song and dance to transform individuals and communities, deal with trauma, and facilitate the process of reconciliation around the unity of rhythm." During the Fellowship, they documented and thought critically about their on-going work in Burundi, Rwanda and South Africa, particularly addressing questions about how participation in drumming, music, dance experiences and performances affect relationships, the development of trust, and personal and communal healing. |  |
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Portfolio by Nicholas Kotei Djanie: "Drumming Brings Up the Spirit"
From Cambodia:
| Ly Daravuth and Ingrid Muan worked as visual artists, art historians and curators. They were Brandeis International Fellows in 2003-2004. Tragically, Ingrid passed away in 2005. They wrote: "For the past five years, we have been working together on a series of art and research projects which culminate in exhibitions and publications. The institutional frame for our work is Reyum, the Institute of Arts and Culture that we established in downtown Phnom Penh in late 1998. In this storefront space, we offer images and texts that we hope open a modest public forum in which those who wish to participate can look, think, discuss, and create. By doing so, we feel that we contribute towards coexistence - if not reconciliation - in Cambodia." During the Fellowship, they continued to reflect upon the seemingly insurmountable obstacles to reconciliation in Cambodia by documenting events at Reyum and other artistic and cultural explorations into issues of violence, justice and reconciliation. Ingrid did not complete her working paper before her death. A partial draft appears below as she sent it to us in December 2004. |  |
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Portfolio by Ly Daravuth: "Where Is Reconciliation?"
Working paper by Ly Daravuth: "Notes on Pchum Ben" (PDF)
Working paper by Ingrid Muan: "The Goodness of Lives" (partial draft) (PDF)
From New Zealand:
| Beverley Hosking and Jenny Hutt explore the use of Playback Theatre ( PBT - a form of improvisational theater performed in 25 countries around the world) "to create the space for deep community dialogue involving the telling and receiving of difficult-to-tell and cannot-be-told stories." Bev is an international PBT trainer, based in New Zealand, working also with social activists in India and in Fiji and with a group of indigenous and Indian Fijians who are actively working toward reconciliation. Jenny, who has also performed and conducted in two PBT companies, took the role of documentor in this team. She is a workplace educator, diversity trainer, writer and editor in Australia, where she now lives. Their documentation focused on the Playback Theatre School in New Zealand, where Bev and her Maori counterpart find that "the combination of theatre, the telling of personal story and the ritual of the PBT form, together with the strength of traditional 'tikanga Maori' can create a powerful framework within which a strong and deep exploration of differences can occur." Their paper includes descriptions of training projects and work in Angola, Fiji, and India. |  |
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From South Africa:
| Kim Berman and Daniel Stompie Selibe work together to document a range of community outreach and development programs that use art processes as a medium for engaging social change in South Africa. The projects vary from education and training, income generating activities, AIDS awareness and responses to communities in trauma. Kim is a printmaker and educator who in 1991 founded the Artist Proof studio, a community-based Art Center for teaching printmaking skills to disadvantaged South Africans who otherwise would not have had access to such opportunities for learning. Artist Proof became the home for some 80 artists to gather, and attend workshops and classes in printmaking, photo processes, bookmaking, papermaking and other techniques. Kim also initiated a paper-making project that is currently sustaining 230 rural women who earn an income from paper products made from the natural biological resources of their regions. Stompie, the primary facilitator and interviewer on the team, works as an artist, musician and teacher. He speaks seven African languages and has led workshops with people from all walks of life in South Africa. Their documentation explores the complexities of a community-based art institution's efforts to contribute to reconciliation in South Africa. |  |
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Working Paper by Kim Berman: "Artist Proof Studio: A Journey of Reconciliation" (PDF)
Portfolio by Daniel Stompie Selibe: "Art, Ubuntu, and Reconciliation"
From Sri Lanka:
| Iffat Fatima and Lisa Kois worked as filmmakers on a "pro-peace and anti-war documentary project focusing on the stories of people that give expression to the larger narratives of peace and war. In their application, they wrote that their work "will look at the ways in which those affected by conflict have no choice but to remember, while exploring the ways in which they remember through storytelling, art, symbol and ritual. Both the process of undertaking the journey and the film itself are intended to stimulate dialogue within and between communities that have been separated by geographic, linguistic and ethnic differences, as well as to stimulate dialogue with and between parties to the conflict." Lisa is a peacebuilding practitioner, human rights lawyer, legal researcher and writer. Iffat is a filmmaker and cultural researcher. During the course of and after the fellowship program, they produced two films based on stories they collected from people in Sri Lanka. Iffat's film Lanka: The Other Side of War and Peace traverses the northern and southern landscape of Sri Lanka. The film, spanning the history of the last three decades of violence in Sri Lanka, juxtaposes the multiple realities of war and peace that simultaneously exist there from the perspective of those who have suffered through this violence and experienced great loss. Since its completion in May 2005, the film has been extensively screened in South Asia including several cities in India, Pakistan, and Bangladash. The film has also been screened in the United States and Ireland. Lisa's film The Art of Forgetting attempts to shatter the silence and statistical anonymity that characterizes the dominant discourses of war by foregrounding the personal stories of the people whose lives have been altered by war and political violence. Woven into the story of a journey from the northern-most tip of Sri Lanka to the southern-most tip, are stories of people met along the way. It is an epic tale of war and peace, embodied in the simple stories of those who have survived to tell. The film is being used by a number of organizations throughout Sri Lanka to stimulate dialogue on issues of past political violence, memory and peace. |  |
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