This article was translated by Izadora Silva, a volunteer participant in the Translation Community at Instituto Elos.
By saying that, Mirian points out a request for care and welcoming from the funders with whom it is at the beginning of its journey in the world of projects. 2019 GSA Warrior, she is from Lauro de Freitas and currently lives in Salvador, Bahia. She is one of the eight supported by Young Ideas in 2023.
When the Elos Institute ran a survey with the GSA Community, which is how we call those who went through some edition of GSA Warriors, it discovered, among many things, it was necessary to support more closely, ideas that it was inspired by the Elos Philosophy in some way, that sprang among the more than 600 participants from all around the world.
Most of these ideas faced the challenge of funding, whether because it was in the initial phase, or because of the complexity of the language of the edicts.
More than supporting a one-off action or a project in the GSA leadership community, Young Ideas is the search for a safe environment in which people can test their hypotheses of transformation. That is, technical and financial support to research, elaborate, design, test, make mistakes if necessary, in search of the best versions of a project.
We want to encourage the development of emerging social technologies. And we can’t do that without a support network. This is the case with Mirian’s work.
“When I left the GSA, I drew my Path of Expansion thinking about how to use the Elos Methodology to draw a theatrical spectacle or artistic creation processes,” she explains. She holds a degree in Theater Direction from the Theater School of the Federal University of Bahia and she has at least 11 years of experience in community mobilization and development of collaborative projects.
She thought that it would be possible, of course, to use what she learned in other contexts, and that was how the Creation Laboratory was born, an initiative that uses the dimensions of the Elos Methodology (Potential, Belonging and Protagonism) to map resources, talents and dreams focusing on the restructuring and institutional repositioning of cultural collectives. The pilot project, supported by the so-called Young Ideas, will be held with the oCartel, a group of black artists from the peripheries of Salvador.
“When we ask what are the dreams of a group, we can map what we need to ask for in an edict, for example,” says Mirian. Who thus points out a little of how she intends to sew the relationship of the Elos Philosophy with the Creation Laboratory.
“Many times we can’t even have a close look at our network,” she says. One of the initiative stages is precisely this investigation of talents and resources that are close, and that we barely trigger in our daily lives.
The linear and often distant way of investigating, organizing and structuring collective powers leaves the scene, to enter another way of addressing institutional challenges, especially in cultural collectives. A more horizontal, a more collective way. In addition to supporting the group to advance to another moment of its existence and its work, the Creation Laboratory – Cartel Edition foresees a series of artistic deliveries.
Inspiring and very powerful, Mirian’s project is one of 8 proposals supported by the Elos Institute in 2023. In addition to the Creation Laboratory, Young Ideas supports the Knowledge of the People of Remanso (Lençóis, BA), Co-creating TRANSformations (Campinas, SP), Associates Actions (São Vicente, SP), Quilombo GSA – Tereza de Benguela (national), Coloring the Quebrada with Poetry (national), Museum of Living Dreams (Recife, PE) and the Weekend in the Park (Cubatão, SP).
