La Quilla
means "the moon". This group was set up in 2001 by Sylvia, a painter
and poet. Since then, the children's enthusiam, talents and love have allowed
them to paint several big murals on the walls of the city Riobamba. Now, some
children who polish shoes on the streets for a living are also members of
Constellation. And the different Constellation groups in Equator are networking:
Sylvia, Miguel and Arnaldo's groups have been able to paint
together!
Silvia and her friend Fernando are often working together.
Fernando has created a unique method based on colours and gestures
to teach music to kids who can’t read.
Sylvia, painter and
leader of the group wrote:
"In April 2001, through Valerie Triboulot, I was invited by the
French artist Sylvaine Rémy to take the lead of a painting
workshop in Riobamba, Equator.
To be honest, I didn't really have a teacher's vocation, but the
offer was tempting anyway, since it was about inciting the peoples
of the world to share their creativity and their identity through
art.
And, at the human level as well as the political level, our
countries, where economic inequalities are outrageous, were
lacking something: a way to value ourselves for what we are, for
what we have, for what we think and feel, for
our wonderful and generous environment. We lacked a means of
looking at problems not as inescapable black holes, but as an
endless source of creativity, that leads us to create suns and
stars inside our beings and to shed their lights on the outside
world.
For this reason, I accepted to organise and lead the Constellation
workshop in Riobamba in Equator, and - in agreement with the
children - we called it 'Killa', a name which comes from the word
kichwa, which means the moon in our ancestral language.
Apart from the mural paintings in town and in nearby villages, we
did several painting exhibitions that recently enabled us to
collaborate with working children, and with handicapped children,
and to expose the work of art of the Killa members with those of
children from other countries in the world that we receive very
warmly and with admiration.
The " Killa " painters won several local and national contests.
José Luis Quevedo was rewarded at the provincial level, and
Clarita Sánchez got a national prize in a contest among all the
educational centers in Equator.
There are more and more children and they continue to progress. "Killa"
was just transferred near the town museum in order to open its
colored arms to all little ones with wings.
I sincerely believe that doing Arts is not a pastime but a choice
of life that we want to advertise, without counting our time, with
no hierarchy nor protocol, but on the contrary with a huge
personal commitment, with creativity and responsibility, and the
will to share our " ways of life" and our ideal with other human
beings and our close environment.
Thank you for this network of hearts that we call "Constellation
".
