Arts Lab 5.0: Carla Ditmeyer, Bolivia - Month 4

Now that I came back from Bolivia, I was scared to not adapt to the rhythm of Art Lab again. But in reality this project is always challenging this type of mentality because there’s no room for doubt, here everything is action. 

In that sense the next day of my return we went to a caravan to a village and I helped a bit with social media. Meanwhile my friends were presenting for the last time workshops with the subject of Cucuteni. It was very fun and we also met people that made the best wine we ever tried. After that we went to see a church that was getting painted which I never thought I would see. To see the sketches of a church in progress was one of the most interesting experiences.  In general it was such a nice experience to get back to the rhythm. 

The same week we had the exhibition of victims of the Holocaust, the Jemom Museum. I wasn’t here in Romania meanwhile they were doing the investigation part so Mihaela recommended me to focus more on the lgbtq+ part of the genocide. I did a poster very fast but for me it was more important to talk about this topic and get educated about it, in terms of errors of the past but also to the current situation here in Romania. In the exhibition I made people put in a little piece of paper things that someone else made them feel ashamed of themselves. After that exercise I burned the papers because the problems that someone else has with you don’t belong to anyone but to them. Everything is a mirror, and the more insecurities you want to give to someone, the more insecurities you have in yourself. I also spoke about being openly bisexual and this had various types of reactions. I will keep the best ones and the people that told me how secure they felt when I said something like this. I will also combine this experience to the first caravan that we had with this exhibition. The people in both places said that they were so happy that I talked about these topics that are taboo in this society and they told me very personal things. I felt such a deep connection with them and they were telling me this changed them a lot. I really loved being part of this and definitely this will stay in my mind and in my heart forever. 

Then Bucharest happened. We had to go for our midterm and I have to say that I had so much fun during those days. The actual midterm and the activities were kind of mid, not gonna lie, but the fact of meeting so many people with so similar experiences was just the best. After that we stayed more days in Bucharest with Dajana, Ahmed, Hassan and Sena and we just rested and vibed so much during those days. We visited a bit of the city and went to Therme. In general that trip was so cool for me and I really want to meet those people again and go back to Bucharest many times. 

The next week was very important for me. We had that caravan in Pașcani where I met the kids that shared with me very personal stuff about their lives and a couple of days after we had the Bolivian Night. To be Bolivian is something that many people don’t want to admit due to the strong discrimination that exists in many countries, specially Spain and Argentina that are the places where many of us migrate. But even inside our country, many people want to forget our traditions, don’t talk about our indigenous ancestry and just portray ourselves in a different way. But I grew up with a family that made me feel proud of who I am and where I come from. Many Bolivians are trying to change the bad mentality of people that want to romanticize western culture by putting more importance in traditions and the youth. That’s why I was so happy to talk about Bolivia and I hope people had a good time knowing more about my culture and eating my food even though I’m not an expert but I think they really enjoyed the night. Next week we also experienced Turkish night (amazing food by the way), UK night where the family of Raph was present and was very cute and Ukrainian night which was overall very fun. 

Then we also traveled to a village with a large population of Rroma people and we met Margareta who’s an educator about Rroma culture and does amazing crafts with recycled materials to create clothes. She creates passion in the kids and I really admire her a lot. We also met Gheorghe Ciobanu, naive painter from Iași county and I have to say it was one of the most fun experiences of all time. His paintings gave me a new source of inspiration and especially his personality. I’m happy he’s very well known because the amount of talent in that man is just insane. 

Finally, and arriving more to the present moment, we prepared our personnel artworks and prepared our last residency. The subject was Rroma according to the Rroma museum but I have to say it was one of the most challenging experiences in the whole project. We had to be with kids in their normal school hours so that meant that not all the kids wanted to be there. Also they didn’t choose their workshops so sometimes they really showed their lack of curiosity out loud but not directly. Adding to that all of us had 25 (or more) kids for one volunteer. Knowing that we are here to do non-formal education but having this types of conditions just forced us to act like normal teachers because of requiring help from the actual teachers that at the end don’t care about non-formal education. It was really difficult so that's why I couldn’t enjoy it properly. But of course I met very cute kids and teenagers and created a bond with them. I love meeting kids and talking about life with them so I was very happy that at least I had that too. Some of them came to the exhibition too and we had even more time to just get to know each other so overall I’m happy about the kids but not from the conditions. 

Last but not least we had the Rroma exhibition. Probably the best one, at least for me. I read tarot cards to people and they got very deep with me which I love. I also presented my artwork that needs to be improved but I also feel proud about it. We had a lot of musical moments, dance and beautiful vibes. I really enjoyed every second and I’m so happy it happened. Thank you for everyone that came that day. 

Carla Wara Ditmeyer Queteguari is from Bolivia, and she is participating in a six-month volunteering program within Arts Lab 5.0, a project co-funded by the European Union through the European Solidarity Corps.