Looking for Belgium: Contemporary arts as a gate to Belgian culture and history

Grant Details

Amount: $6,267

Project Start Date: 05/31/06

Status: In Progress (under development)

Project Type:
Campus Based

Languages: French

Project Level:
Beginner
Intermediate
Advanced

Project Skills:
Cultural Awareness
Speaking
Listening
Reading
Writing

Institutions Involved:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Primary Contact:
Cathy Culot (cculot@MIT.EDU)

77 Massachusetts Avenue
14N-427
Cambridge , MA 02139
Phone: 617-253-3462

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Secondary Contact:
Kurt Fendt
fendt@mit.edu
Foreign Languages and Literatures 77 Massachusetts Avenue. Building 16-635B Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge MA 02139-4307

trometer@mit.edu
Ruth Trometer,Director Language Learning and Resource Center 16-657 MIT Cambridge MA 02139

This project will be repository of digital and scanned images, written documents, video fragments, songs and interviews that will introduce our students to Belgian culture and history through Belgian contemporary arts. Artists will be chosen within the visual arts (painting, sculpture, video art, architecture and photography), the ninth art or art of comic strips as well as those working in music, film, theatre, dance, literature and those preserving the traditions, gastronomy and popular culture in Belgium. The main scope of the repository will be artists who are currently active or who have created their work in the last decades of the 20th century. These contemporary artists will be the starting point for different chains of references to Belgian culture and artists. Indeed, this project will present contemporary materials as links to Belgian history, culture and artists of the past. It will give students access to a unique culture with different influences, mainly the French, the Flemish and the German communities living together in Belgium and each contributing to what Belgian culture represents. Therefore, artists from the three communities will be included in the repository. The materials will be organized within a traditional MetaMedia archive, which will include the different themes around which the classes will be structured, and each theme will feature the artists most relevant to the theme being studied. The selection of artists within each theme is not exhaustive. This will allow students to make their own selection of materials to be included under a theme and to assume the role of an online curator creating different links between artists.