The decentralization of artistic education and cultural activities

Anouar Kablaoui [El Nura Hermano professional nickname ] : Composer and concert guitarist specialized in flamenco.
Since 2007, I have taught classical and flamenco guitar in different conservatories.
In 2010 I founded the first Flamenco Club in Tunisia. I have been working simultaneously in the sector of film industry as an artistic director, composing and performing musical soundtracks for both movies and documentaries.

May you know that projects of high quality cannot be realized without a solid and deep training and coaching, this is why in December 2015 I decided to launch The High Academy of Arts :the first center dedicated to Tunisian talents that provides professional art classes for youth and adults helping them to follow their passion.

Our academy offers a high-quality education in various artistic fields that are increasingly interrelated in our society, including music, dance, theater, audiovisual technology, graphic design, photography and performing arts.

The Academy is not only one of the country’s leading institutions for the development of an amateur practice of arts, but also a place that gathers young talents , experimented arts teachers and art flowers.

The main issue that our community of artists are facing in my country is the lack of a recognized certification in the various artistic disciplines. The existing structures – mainly private conservatoires and academies – are indeed not habilitated to deliver such diplomas. It is against this background that emerged the idea to establish the High Academy Of Arts: a center for professional training entitled to deliver recognized certifications in the artistic field. Our institution thus aims at filling a crucial need in this professional sector in Tunisia.

The Academy’s education project

Soon after its creation the Academy demonstrated the quality of its education. For two successive years (2016 & 2017), four of its minor students obtained the Artistic Professional Card – delivered by the Tunisian Ministry of Culture – as well as all its adult students who ran for the national examination.

The Academy indeed puts significant efforts in to provide a good quality of training for its students : combining individual courses, with group workshops, organizing study trips and online classes provided by international professors. This comprehensive curriculum aims, on one hand to ensure the diversity of the education received by the students, on the other hand, to boost their intellectual curiosity and cultural open-mindedness
We especially take care of our senior students and we support them during their graduation projects, which are mandatory to obtain their diploma.
Our greatest challenge is to deliver a serious and high-quality artistic projects realized by our students individually or in a team.
We also consider essential, that the projects delivered can compete in the national and international industry

The E-CULTURA Social Project:

The centralization of artistic education and cultural activities remain a concerning issue in today’s Tunisia. Acting to reduce the regional unbalance in the cultural field is at the heart of our mission in the Academy’s E-CULTURA project.

Our first goal is sharing the Academy’s rich and high-quality art courses with the most deprived regions in Tunisia. Through a mobile application developed by young Tunisian engineers, the Academy have the ambition to provide a free access to its courses to the youth of the marginalized regions. A first phase of the project will initially cover six governorates identified as most in need of cultural education (Kebili, Kasserine, Sidi Bouzid, Kef, Siliana and Jendouba), so the locals of this regions will attend online our courses and workshops .
Besides, the project aims to spread the values of culture and make a larger impact in this regions giving the opportunity to the locals to attend several cultural events taking place in Tunis and organized by our partner organizations – including national institutions as well as foreign cultural centers –through free live broadcasting.

The technology we use :

The e cultura student : An original pedagogical design to facilitate the relationship between the teacher and the class in the presence of a diffusion camera we have developed a dummy integrated by a touch pad on the back and a camera in front to make the relationship between classmates And the Professor more intimate fluid and warm, which guarantees the smooth operation of the course and its transmission.

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hey Anouar @E-CULTURA welcome on board.
I am interested to know more about the Ecultura social part, I come from Egypt where everything (including culture and art centers ) are centralized in Cairo. so I am interested to know more about how do you manage this online art education, specially that it includes practice and also instruments. Do you make physical workshops as introduction or how does it work ?
I assumed you make physical interactions because it is now limited to 6 places. how do you think this could be upscaled or how can other organizations use your platform to conduct their own education in different parts of the world ( for example in Egypt )

Hello Anouar!
I come from Medenine, so I totally understand what does it mean to grow up in a place where you only get to watch people practicing arts and culture through TV and internet… I love whatyou are doing and I appreciate the fact that people want to spread these beautiful arts all overTunisia, I am currently working on having a cultural space, maybe we can manage something to link the online courses with the space in my region?

Thanks Hazem, for your attention, at the beginning we used skype / mesenger … but now we are using applications, camera sharing and interface like MANYCAM, works with a shared IP address, so we will try for now to select before That E-CULTURA is an independent application.

For courses and workshops, (Group) is broadcasting live streaming, plus individual lessons between the student e-cultura and the teacher, a direct interview after the follow-up of the courses in streaming.
Now this program has two objectives, the national and the international. The national is to popularize art education in a way that art really is for everyone. The international side now is to benefit from the quality of training, and to have a relationship with artists for the purpose of exporting artistic project and Culture of North Africa also egypt in Europe.

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Dear yosser
Absolutely what we are looking for. Conventions between e-cultura and private centers. (And I think that for the moment we will send our courses through only private centers but not public) To promote private initiatives and young people like me.
So I will send you the IP of cam and you can broadcast for free in your center plus the activity of foreign centers like GOETHE-INSTITUT / INSTITUTO CERVANTES / INSTITUT FRANÇAIS DE TUNIS. You will not need to move to access these activities, and this is your legitimate right. We will do the necessary work for this. We will also need volunteers to record videos if an event happens in sousse or sfax for example.

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Hi Anouar, welcome to edgeryders :slight_smile:

Very interesting reading your work, reminds me of the work Taguhi Tarosyan is doing in building an independent Institute for Contemporary art in Yerevan, Armenia - you can read about it here . Maybe even leave a comment with thoughts or questions. I think that since she posted that conversation @iriedawta has gone on to be more involved in the arts scene herself.

One facet of formalised education is opportunities it offers for visiting staff and student exchanges. In Europe there is a scheme called Erasmus which enables students to do an exchange year at a university somewhere else on the continent. @miganoush came up with a brilliant solution - teachsurfing!

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@m_tantawy and here’s another example of how people do decentralization of knowledge.

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thank you very much for the initiative, I think the platform is a very good idea for the development of ideas and exchange. me and the e-cultura project is withdrawing from this platform. thank you for your comments and your collaboration.