In August, the Bolivian art education collective Thunkuna visited New York City, where they spoke with Chalkboard. The interview was translated by anthropologist Carmen Medeiros.

About two years ago, a painter came from North Carolina to Cochabamba, Bolivia, as part of an international cooperation project. When she visited Michelle’s house to see her paintings, we were holding one of our Thunkuna collective meetings. After we described what we did, she said, "I’m going to bring you to the U.S." Of course we didn’t believe it at the time. She brought us through some Raleigh-Cochabamba cooperation under Partners of America (which we had never heard of).

In Raleigh, we worked in three different spaces over three weeks: ArtSpace, Cary Cultural Center, and Exploris ("the world’s first global experience center"). Most mornings we worked at one space with one group, and in the afternoon changed to another space, with a different group of kids. The age-range changed week to week, and sometimes from morning to afternoon. We taught creativity at ArtSpace; we worked in dance and drum in Exploris; we built masks with teenagers; we created imaginary animals with papier-mâché. We also taught the older kids to "write" their names in an Inca form called Quipos (kee-poes), a system using color symbols with knots in string.

In general, we work in creativity and integration of the arts. Each of the three of us came from a different experience of work, art, and education: Patricia danced for 25 years, Michelle comes from 20 years of painting, and Alvaro has experience in education. Together, our goal is to have children exploring their own capacity for creativity. What we want to recuperate is all the different feelings in all the senses—in all the senses of the word sense: not just the intellectual ones, but skin, touch, smell, emotions, and affection.

When we’re working with children (because we also work with older people), we play a lot with surprises and curiosity. How are we going to motivate the children? When we plan, we think of it as living through an adventure. So, if it’s a week, and with kids (as it was in Cary Cultural Center), we prepare surprises for the first day. For starting with masks, for example, we hide a mask somewhere in the space, and call a treasure hunt, without telling them what the treasure is. The workshop at that moment is not really about treasure-hunting. Nor is the point to teach a technique of building masks. We want to generate the ability to be creative, the capacity to create emotional connections—what matters is not so much the game or the final product (the mask), but the process.

At the beginning of the session, Patricia leads the children in movement. This explores their internal rhythm—because each of us, we believe, is born with a rhythm. Moving their bodies, the first purpose is to appreciate the body, whether big, small, fat, or thin. Second, it helps them relax and open up.

Next, we begin to create gestures of imaginary things. Games like this are always an integrated part of our workshop. Patricia calls out words like "sad," or "funeral," or "fire," which they have to interpret and express through their bodies. We move quickly through many images, so they don’t think. The point is not so much to curtail rationality, but to complement rationality with gestures, expressions, and senses.

Although we do plan beforehand, often we change our course. If one child offers an idea that seems rich, we three immediately look at one another, and then vary the workshop around this new possibility. Thunkuna doesn’t work by clock time, but sensation time.

Across a week, we spend some time in each medium: movement with Patricia, visuals with Michelle, percussion with Alvaro. While Patricia is leading dancing, Michelle is part of the group of children, and Alvaro plays the drums. When we turn to do color, then Patricia joins the children. If, in the middle of a workshop, Alvaro gets the idea to change direction, Patricia and Michelle will support him, follow along, and watch where it goes. We work together like jazz improvisation.

After some activities that allow us to sense the children, given what we perceive as their strengths, we decide to emphasize more percussion, or movement, or visual art, or words.

In Raleigh, we spent two days on masks because they fascinated the teenagers, so we integrated rhythm and body work with making the masks. (Also, we had a lot of time for conversation, which we consider part of the process.) We don’t stick to traditional resources. To make music, for example, in Raleigh we used garbage; another time we might use ripping or banging newspaper. Our work is integrated: everything is around everything, and everything changes. Because the constellation of people, space, and time does change, we do not work from a ready-made curriculum.

What we want above all is that each child after the workshop feels good with him- or herself, which will open a "light" in their own daily lives, which will then affect other people. Our workshops do consider the individual—we want each to feel confident in his or her own creative capacity—but also the collective.

What surprised us about the experience in Raleigh was the enormous infrastructure of the three spaces. But at the same time, we got the sense that these conditions aren’t used to their full capacity. A lot of material is wasted. Everything seemed aseptic, too clean, and afraid of risk. We believe that kids learn better when they get messy and in the paint. Also, we made a lot of noise, and took over the whole space, which didn’t seem common in Raleigh. In Bolivia, we don’t have this infrastructure. We use what’s there. Kids can use big scissors, and nobody will comment; a child can fall, and it’s okay.

We didn’t see a great difference between the children we met in Raleigh and the children we work with in Bolivia. Where you see a difference is between children in Bolivia’s countryside (who are poor), and middle class kids in Bolivia or elsewhere.

Thunkuna is a freelancing arrangement: we get together for certain activities, then go back to our separate activities to earn a living. We don’t have a physical space (our office is Michelle’s house). We haven’t received grants, because in Bolivia there are no arts foundations. We work for those who can pay. Sometimes when we get hired by an institution with international funding, then one month later, we give a another workshop in the countryside for free.

Our name Thunkuna means "hopscotch" in Quechua (an indigenous Andean language). Bolivian hopscotch puts a sun at the top of the boxes. We take this as our belief about creativity: you move jump by jump to reach the sun. And sometimes you’re on one foot, sometimes on two.

Contact Thunkuna at thunkuna@yahoo.com.

Resource: As North Carolina is paired with Cochabamba, New York State areas are matched with various Caribbean countries through Partners for America. For more information, visit www.partners.net.