FOS Berlin is working on LGTB in arts in spite of the Corona crisis. Our students have been preparing the collage exhibition planned for the mobility in Berlin at the end of March. As soon as schools open again, we are arranging an exhibition. The music for it is currently being produced by 8-graders in our school and is tackles the topic of transgender.

ART MAKES US FREE. ERASMUS STUDENT NETWORK VISITS US

     The second part of the project is dedicated to the art.
     Art is a space which normally enjoys more freedom than the rest of the society, as we all understand that freedom is necessary to create. Therefore art has always been a mean to introduce new ideas, new behaviours, new aesthetic models that, although controversial at the begining, later on have been  accepted by the rest of the society. In this sense, art helps to shape and change people.
In this point of the project we want  to investigate about  how different pieces of art have contributed to brake down gender stereotypes, to make more visible LGTB community and to eliminate stereotypes.
On the other hand,  LGTB personalities from all over the world have taken part in this work that is an essential element of our culture. We know their master pieces. However, some times we ignore their authors were not cis-heterosexual. To know this is important, first to make visible any sexual orientation or gender election, secondly to understand how wrong lgtbphobia is, as many master pieces could have never existed if their authors would have been prosecuted or, maybe, in fact, we have lost these pieces forever.
First of all, we started with a simple activity at school in order  to know how much do our students know about the LGTB contribution to our society.

     Not that bad, but we can do it better. Get on with it!!!!
     Our students  now have started to investigate about pop music bands, films, painters, drag queens. (Material produced can be seen on the label called documents) But first the Ersamus Student Network came to visit us.
     Five students, three of them from Spain, one from Mexico and another one from Japan, led by Pablo A. Martín Campos (also from Spain), met our students to talked about art. They introduced our students some important LGTB artists.
For example, the student from Japan taked about Ai Haruna, who is a trans japanese singer and actress.

     This talk was quite interesting because we could see the differences among cultures as well as their similarities. Although, being lgtb is still a kind of taboo in Japan, the actress mentioned above is quite popular. In fact, Haruna won the Miss International Queen 2009 transgender beauty pageant held in Thailand, becoming the first Japanese contestant to win. She has maken trans people more visible in Japan, explained the Erasmus student who also mentioned the differences between Spanish society and her own. Although here in Spain we think we have still a long way to walk (which is true), she explained how atonished she was when she arrived to Spain and saw same gender couples hand to hand or kissing each other. Despite all the things we have to improve in Spain, she believes that lgtb people enjoy here more freedom than  in Japan, although thanks to peopla like Ai Haruna and many others, Japan is becoming a more lgtb friendly country.

     They talked also about Rupaul the first drag queen to be the image of a cosmetics brand. He is also the main character of the series AJ and the Queen that can be watched in Netflix which is quite recommendable. It is a series done for children and families (bad people very bad, good people absolutley good, no real violence...) The only difference is that their characters are lgtb, therefore  on the occasion of  the script,  the dialogue introduces some small lessons, as the difference between gay, trans and homosexual, what gender identity is and so on, so the series helps to normalize the lgtb community as well as teach some concepts in an easy way

But, we wouldn't like to finish this post without thanking  Pablo A. Martín Campos, his collegues and the Erasmus Student Network. Every time we have needed their help, they have cooperated in an absolutely generously way. In this particular occasion you have given our students an inspiration to start investigating about the influence of the lgtb community on art and on our culture, which is bigger than what they expected. THANKS A LOT!!!!!

VALENTINE'S DAY

     On Valentine´s day, we decided to make visible different kinds of love.
Tradicionally this day is dedicated to those who love. Nevertheless, at the end, only white cis hetersosexual couples are represented on mass medias. This narrow and limited depiction of love contributes to spread stereotypes and to ignore the huge amount of natural ways of loving.
On the other hand,on March 8th is the Women's Day. Many languages use the term "being alone" to refer a girl or woman who hasn´t got a boyfreind.This term just perpuates the idea that an emotional life needs a man. It doesn't matter if you have friends, families, a job you love or whatever. At the end, you are alone if you haven't got a boyfriend or husband. This prejudice contribute to strength dependence relationships. Our female teenagers have to know that they are quite capable to stand on their own feet, that it is possible to be single and to have an intense emotional life at the same time.This is specially important for the heterosexual women to prevent gender violence or toxic relationships, as it will help to empower them and to make them realize that any relationship should add more happiness in their life, but if it doesn't, there are still many other people and activities that give sense, enrich and fulfill our lives.

     In order to get these two objectives mentioned above, we designed the following activity: taking pictures of whatever we love. It could be friends, books, families, partners...anything except a white cis heterosexual love. Nothing against this one, but it is already overrepresented on the media. We launched this actiivity on Instagram too, but, too be honest, we didn't have much succes. Maybe because we forgot to add a hashtag or maybe because it's difficult to succeed if you are not an influencer. However, next year we will try it harder.

     Nevertheless, many students took part at school and sent beautiful pictures. With the best of them, we have created a mural that is located at the entrance. In return, we have sent to those who participated a bag with the logo of our project.

Teachers, students, friends, pets.....THANKS FOR TAKING PART IN THIS ACTIVITY, THANKS FOR CELEBRATING DIVERSITY