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!!!!!
